Like no other filmmaker, I've always felt that Clint Eastwood's work is connected. Perhaps this comes from his on-screen career, or his tendency to work with the same writers, cinematographers, and editors film after film. But I feel like above all else, Eastwood has drawn to stories about redemption, and I feel like this idea shines through the brightest and million dollar baby and grand terino. And after watching both films back to back, I noticed many parallels within their stories, characters, structures, and most importantly, their themes. And today, I would like to examine these two films and look at how they tell their stories of redemption, the similarities and the differences in what we can learn about these films and apply to Eastwood's career as a whole. The first thing that's worth pointing out about redemption story arcs is that they traditionally exist within villains. The redemption in these two films, however, is not traditional, because not only is their redemption not of a villain, it's of our protagonists, Walt and Frankie. And their redemption arc comes in five stages, and although there are significant differences between the two films, examining the structure of the two films will help reveal how Clint Eastwood's favorite story of redemption is told. It starts off with a state of existence, and this begins before the entire movie does, essentially what happened in these characters' lives before the film started rolling, what shaped them to be who they are. And although they live very different lives, there is one connecting thread, and that's prejudice, a bias that he developed based on information that we will later learn about. In Gran Turino, Walt is prejudiced against Koreans. His time in the war mixed with his own bias beliefs turned him into a racist. He believes things should be done one way, and refuses to accept anything different. And this limited perspective on life makes him unhappy. His recently deceased wife was the one thing in his life that meant anything to him, and now he does everything he can to try and remember that part of his life. His car is the embodiment of the memory of her, and that's all that he has left. Frankie on the other hand refuses to train women. His prejudice comes not from a place of hatred, but from love. He already lost his daughter. The film doesn't tell us why, but the two are estranged, very likely because of how much time he spent training fighters, instead of spending time with her. He sees his daughter in Maggie, and refuses to train her, knowing that he could lose her. Boxing is a violent sport, and doesn't want to put her into a dangerous situation like he did with Scrap. Regardless of why the bias is there, it's still there, and it's a personal flaw of his in the film that will show him overcoming. This ultimately starts to change through forced contact. A Korean family moves in next door to Walt, and he is exposed to their culture. The violent nature of his neighborhood leads to conflict, and his desire to be a hero outweighs his own bias. He begins to spend time with, and enjoys their company.  There will be a little bit more on that later. Due to circumstances out of his hand, he is exposed to the culture that he was biased against, and finds out that many of his misconceptions weren't just that, they were wrong. Frankie's exposure towards Maggie comes through Scrap. He sees himself in her, he sees dedication and a desire to win, and the knowledge that she will push herself as far as she needs to go to win. Scrap sees this in her first, and begins teaching her the basics of fighting, and gives her the opportunity to be noticed by Frankie, who admires her dedication. She is training when he is watching, and when he isn't. Through this forced exposure, Frankie sees what she is made of, and knows how far she will push herself to succeed, and he decides to train her. It's worth mentioning that both characters are drawn to the same attribute, hard work. Maggie works as hard as she can to be the best that she can, and Tao works to repay his debt to Walt, but through this, Eastwood's two characters are drawn to their dedication. They both see themselves in both Maggie and Tao. The two eventually come to appreciate the time spent with Tao and Maggie, and ultimately find a love. Walt acts as a positive force in Tao's life, showing him to stand up for himself and to not let others walk all over him. He is a source of stability in Tao's life, and in turn finds stability within his own life. He now no longer obsesses over the intangible car. He has something in his life that means something. For the first time since his wife died, he found people with whom he can't connect. Frankie on the other hand already knew about Maggie's work ethic, and she begins to fill the hole in his life, the lack of family. The two of respect for one another and through working together are able to achieve something neither of them were able to do in the past. Maggie came from nothing the mere act of achieving anything is more than she ever had. Other truth is, my brother's in prison. My sister cheats on welfare by pretending one of her babies is still alive. My dad is dead and my mama weighs 312 pounds. And Walt had enough faith in her to take her to the highest level of competition. They find enlightenment through one another. In both films, the characters given families are not there, whereas the ones that they choose are able to support them.  The fourth stage of their redemption arcs is tragedy. The mere act of spending time with one another isn't enough to fully redeem the characters. They need to be faced with choice and the forces of antagonism and adversity head on. It's worth noting that the means of tragedy are very different from one film to another. Gran Torino sees a slow escalation, Tau's cousins increase their violence going past violence and towards life-threatening behavior, while a million dollar baby sees a sucker punch paralyze Maggie. And both of these events are either latently or directed affected by both Walt and Frankie, obviously unintentional, but still happen because of them. Tau's cousins escalated their behavior because Walt and Tau spent time together while Maggie's hit came because Frankie got her into the fight. Of course along with the tragedy comes everything else that they have gotten from the two men. Tau took his work ethic and focused it on improving his life, finding work and making something of himself, while Maggie on the other hand lived her dream, did what she knew she was good at, and made something of herself. The tragedy was out of the hands of the two figures, but now that the two situations are at their worst comes the final aspect. Redemption comes from making the right decision. Both men have a history of making poor decisions when faced with adversity, but their time spent with Tau and Maggie taught them as much about themselves as they learned about others. They realized that they weren't as good of people as they thought they were, and now that they only have one shot left, they need to make the decision that is right. Frankie puts Maggie out of her suffering, bringing relief to her but leaving him with pain. She earned her legacy. Meanwhile Walt sacrifices himself to protect Tau. To stop the violence once and for all, he needs to bring the violence to levels that it has never reached before, and let law enforcement clean up the streets. He allows himself to fall so that Tau can live the life that he will find most fulfilling, and in both of these cases the two men allow pain for themselves for the betterment of others. Both characters exit the story as better men than when they entered. No matter where he is, I thought you should know what kind of man your father really was. Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed. I don't want to speculate too much about to which extent Eastwood's films are about his own life and his own experiences. He very rarely discusses his own work and when he does, he likes to focus on the technical side of filmmaking, so whether these films are autobiographical or not, I can't say. But I can say that this is a story to which he is drawn. I definitely could have included Unforgiven in the discussion and would have met much of the same criteria, but I'm saving that for another day. In the meantime, I want to hear your thoughts and your perspective on Eastwood's homography. He's made a lot of it, so please hold your discussion and let me know what your favorite film of his is. If you would like to help support the channel, there's a link to my Patreon on Spree Now, and right next to it is my last video on Inception, which I looked at the meaning behind dreams. Check that out if you're interested and thank you for watching.


Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Kiran and Prince, for joining. We'll begin and we'll just, the meantime, others can join. Can I ask Kiran to pray, please? Yes, ma'am, sir. We'll pray. Father God will return once again and we want to say you, Father God, for your word, your goodness and your kindness and your love, Father God, thank you, Father God. Give you wisdom and revelation, Father God, that we can understand the subject, Father God, and apply it to our life, Father God, and also apply it to your kingdom, Father God. Help us to understand. And with the rest of the time, submitting to your hand, Father, take care of every side. Thank you, Father. Almighty Jesus, Amen. Okay, today we are going to begin with Paul's letter to Philemon. Anyone knows anything about this book, Philemon? Anything that you know about the book of Philemon? Yeah, Thomas. In Philemon, you can see, Onesimus is a slave, met Paul in prison. So, sending back to Philemon. So, the letter is a slave, another slave, but back to you as a brother receiving and treating with the Godly love context is writing. Just one chapter about this book. Yes, just one chapter and thank you for that good introduction, Thomas. Anyone else would like to share what you know about Paul's letter to Philemon? Okay, just this, you know, quick, brief introduction before we go into the specifics of the introduction and looking at what Paul is writing to Philemon. This is a personal letter. This is not to a person that is to Philemon. It's not to any church. We know that even though Paul wrote the episode of 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus, he writes it to Titus and Timothy, but it is also to be read in the church. But here, this is a more personal letter, which he writes not to any church, but specifically to Philemon. Philemon is a rich man and hence he has slaves. And so, one of his slaves, Onesimus, runs away. He runs away to Rome because Rome is a good place for him to hide because it's a very popular, it's a hugely populated place. And, you know, it's easier for him to hide there. In Rome, you know, Onesimus comes in contact with Paul, who was there during his 1st Roman imprisonment.  And we see that, you know, he becomes a great asset or he becomes very useful for Paul in his ministry. Onesimus himself begins ministering. But Paul knows that, you know, he has to do his responsibility, his earthly and spiritual responsibility, by sending Onesimus back to his master. And Onesimus also knows that, you know, now since he has a new perspective in life, a spiritual perspective, he's born again, he's accepted Christ. He agrees to go back to his master, which can even mean that, you know, he'll be killed. But, you know, he agrees to go back. And so we see that Paul is writing this letter to Philemon to accept Onesimus back as a brother in Christ. And also, because Onesimus had stolen some money from Philemon, Paul is willing to pay back. And Paul actually wants to keep back Onesimus because he's a great help for him in the ministry. So he asked Philemon the permission to do so. And we see that, you know, Taikikis takes this letter of to Philemon and also to the church at Colossae, because Philemon lived in Colossae. So he takes a letter, Epistle of Colossians, and also the Epistle of Ephesians. So from there, maybe he's traveling to the city of Ephesus, and he travels along with Onesimus. So this is just a basic background through the book of Philemon. Who writes this letter? Or who's the author of the book of Philemon? Who is the author of the book of Philemon? Who writes this letter? If you can't unmute your mics, you can type it in the chat section. Paul, yes, it's Paul because he's writing the letter to, wrote this letter to Philemon. Thank you, Kanan. And we see, you know, Paul writing his name in verse one, verse nine, and verse 19. Now, where was this book written and the date when it was written? Basically, this book was written from Rome when Paul was in his first Roman imprisonment and was written in AD 6061. Now, how do we know that Paul wrote this letter from his first Roman imprisonment? Because in this letter, Paul clearly mentions himself as a prisoner in verse one, verse nine, verse 10, and verse 23. So we also see that Paul's imprisonment seems to be the same location as what he mentions in Colossians, the book of Colossians, because the names mentioned in Philemon was 10 and was his 20 to 24 are the same names also mentioned in Colossians chapter four, verses seven to 17. So we see that it's most possible that he wrote the epistle of Colossians from his first Roman imprisonment. So the same time he's written Philemon as well, the letter to Philemon. In Colossians chapter four, verses seven to nine, we see that Taikikus has been entrusted the responsibility to deliver the letter to Philemon and to the church at Colossae, and he was accompanied by Onesimus, and this is the same Onesimus that is mentioned in Philemon. And we also see that Paul was under house arrest in Rome, and because he was under house arrest, he had the freedom to, he was allowed visitors and co-workers to come and meet him, and that is how he would have met Onesimus, and Onesimus would have come and met him and he shared the gospel, and Onesimus accepted, and we see that Paul also had other people who would come and visit him, and they would go out and do the ministry as Paul would have told them to. Now Dr. Luke, who writes the book of Acts, who wrote the book of Acts, was with Paul at Rome, and we see that he also mentions about the details about this in the book of Acts, because it was Dr. Luke who wrote the book of Acts, and we know that Paul mentions that only Luke is here with me, he says in Titus, he writes it there, and so we see, and we know that he was during his first Roman imprisonment, and Luke was there with him, and also we see that Luke mentioning this in the book of Acts, and so we know that Paul wrote it during his first Roman imprisonment, he wrote this letter to Philemon. Now some people, some commentary writers, some theologians say that Caesarea was a location where Paul wrote this letter, but it's not possible because it's not possible for Onesimus who was a runaway slave to have gone to Caesarea, to have escaped to a place like Caesarea, because it was a very small place and he would be easily noticed being a slave, he would have been easily noticed, but so it was very unlikely that he could have gone to Caesarea, and also it was not possible for him to have had access to Paul, like he would have had access to Paul in Rome, because at Rome Paul was under house arrest and not in Caesarea, and we also see in verse 22, Paul requests Philemon to prepare a place in his house because he will be coming soon to meet him, because he'll be released in the near future, and we know that it happened in his first Roman imprisonment, he was released, but that was not the case at Caesarea where Paul knew that his only hope was to appeal to Caesar, okay, so it was not possible if he was in Caesarea, but we knew that it was a possibility when he was in Rome, he knew he could be released, so Caesarea is not the place where he wrote it from, some commentary writers, theologians say that it could have been Ephesus where he wrote this letter, but it's most unlikely because no evidence exists to affirm that Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus, and it's most unlikely that the runaway slave Onesimus would have gone to Ephesus and remained there long enough to know Paul since it was more than 100 miles away from Colossae, now where Philemon lived, where Onesimus was in Philemon's house, they lived in Colossae, so for him to escape to a place that was 100 miles would be very difficult, but it was easier for him to go to Rome and also to hide in Rome because Rome was a highly populated place, okay, so it was from Rome and Roman imprisonment that Paul writes this letter, so what is the date, it's probably 8061, Paul wrote this letter to Philemon alongside his letters, episodes to Colossian, to the Church at Colossae and to the Church at Ephesus, and we know that Taikikus, you know, took these letters to these places and he was accompanied by Onesimus, so it's probably 8061, now who is Onesimus, we already know that he is a slave of Philemon, he'd stolen some money, we know this from verse 18 in chapter 1, there's only one chapter in Philemon that he's stolen money, he ran away to Rome, which was a very highly populated place and safe for him to hide, and how did he come in contact with Paul in Rome, now there are two possibilities that suggest how he came in contact with Paul, the first one is Epaphorus who had come from Colossae at that time to visit Paul and we read this in Colossians chapter 1, verse 7 and 8, verse 4, 12 to 13, so Epaphorus who was from Colossae which is the place where Philemon lived, he would have come to Rome, he may have seen and recognized Onesimus because we know that a church was meeting in Philemon's house and we need to know that in those days churches did not have their own properties, their own buildings, the Jews had their synagogues but not the churches, so they met in the houses of people who had big houses where they could meet, so there was a church that met at Philemon's house, so Epaphorus being one of the leaders of the church at Colossae would have seen Onesimus would have also known Onesimus Lannaway, so he sees him and maybe he brings him to Paul. The second possibility people say how Onesimus met Paul is Onesimus might have run out of his money which he had stolen and he was in desperate need, he may have been familiar with the name of Paul because Paul was at Colossae and was known to Philemon as well, so maybe he would have turned to Paul as a last resort, so these are the two possibilities but the interesting thing is when Paul, when Onesimus met Paul, Paul took a deep interest in Onesimus, we see Onesimus accepted Christ and became very useful to Paul in his ministry when he was in imprisonment, Onesimus became so dear to Paul that Paul calls him the son in the faith, we see this in verse 10 and we also know that Paul wanted to keep back Onesimus, we read this in verse 13 but since Onesimus belonged to Philemon Paul had the social responsibility, the moral responsibility, the spiritual responsibility to send him back to his master even though he wanted to keep him and so he sends him with a thank you kiss who carried the letter to Colossian the church at Colossae and the letter to Philemon, we read this in Colossians chapter 4 verse 7 to 9 and so we see that in this letter Paul requests Philemon to receive Onesimus as a beloved brother in the Lord verse 10 and 16 perhaps with the hope that Philemon would return Onesimus back to Paul so that he can continue being useful to Paul in the ministry, we read this in verse 21 now you know you can ask this question why a personal letter to a person to one person is included in the Bible know why it's a father canon why it's included in the Bible so the possibility is that the people say in AD 10 the bishop of Ephesus was a man by the name Onesimus it could have been the same Onesimus was a runaway slave so if Onesimus was in his late or early 20s teens you know he would when he would have met Paul and Paul wrote this letter now it was almost 70 years past so he would sorry a good 50 years past so you know Onesimus would now be 70 years old in AD 110 and it was not a unreasonable age for somebody to become a bishop in those days and we also have historical evidences that's all the letters of Paul were first gathered in a group or put together you know it was all parchment separated but they're all put together in a group in the city of Ephesus and maybe at a time when Onesimus was the bishop and maybe Onesimus first compiled the letters and wanted to make sure that his letter that was written to Philemon about him about his contract of freedom was included in the Bible and hence they say it's a possibility that because of that it was it's in the Bible any questions on the introduction questions on the introduction okay there's no questions we'll move on to Philemon chapter one so can one of you please read the greetings that are mentioned in verses one to three verses one to three can one of you please read was one to three please John Paul a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy our brother to Philemon our beloved friend and for all level to the beloved Appiah and Assyria peers our fellow soldier and to the church in your house grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ thank you prince so here we see that you know in any letter that Paul or epistle that he has written out of the 13 letters Paul has written to churches and all individuals in nine of them we see that he calls or in the introduction in the greeting he calls himself as an apostle in the opening verse but in this letter along with the you know the the book of Philippians and first and second Thessalonians in these four books we see that Paul appealed to his to people who were reading his letter more as a friend and less as an apostle but in all of the 13 letters that he's written nine of them in the beginning opening verse he talks about himself as an apostle but in the book of Philippians first and second Thessalonians and here in Philemon he appeals to his three leaders more as a friend than and less as an apostle okay so but we see that in this occasion because he's writing to a friend a friend writing to a friend so Paul and Philemon are friends so a friend writing to a friend he drops his official title he is not writing as Paul the apostle but he's writing as Paul the prisoner of Christ and so here we see at the very beginning of this letter you know Paul is laying aside all of his appeal to Philemon to take back Onesimus and how to treat him and send him back not based on authority but making his appeal in a very sympathetic way in love as a friend would make to a friend and he's not trying to use his authority like he uses to write to the other churches when he uses his authority to establish God's order in the church okay so we see that when Paul talks about himself as a prisoner of Christ you know we I've explained this Paul a prisoner of Christ Jesus when we did the first Timothy second Timothy Titus so can anyone share what is the meaning of when Paul is writing that he's a prisoner of Christ Jesus come on we have looked at you know four books the introduction for second Timothy Titus three of them what does it mean when Paul writes a prisoner of Christ I'm sure you studied this even when you were doing the book of Romans can somebody share okay he means that he's a servant his beloved okay thank you Kiran what does Paul mean when he says he's a prisoner of Christ come on I've explained this so many times I'm sure you would you know remember something okay Paul what he's mentioning here is basically he's not talking about his physical situation about his you know circumstances or the difficulties but he's basically talking about his spiritual position like Kiran said you know he's you know you know as a prisoner of Christ he's like a servant of Christ he's under the authority of Christ himself and he is bound to Christ he's dependent on Christ as a prisoner of Christ okay so we see that he is bound to Christ he's dependent on him he does what Christ tells him to do he does the will of of the father he does the will of Jesus Christ he fulfills the purpose that Christ Jesus has called him from darkness to light and so hence he talks about him himself as a prisoner of Christ so it's a good thing to think about this title you know prisoner of Christ to see that such a great apostle you know talks about himself as a prisoner of Christ isn't it it's good to introduce ourselves also sometimes as prisoner of Christ if you're somebody who feels totally bound to Christ abiding in the wine totally dependent on him and trusting in him at all times it's a good way to to to call yourself that and it's a good way to even think about yourself as a prisoner of Christ when you think of yourself as a prisoner of Christ you know all of the so-called titles the powers the position that we sometimes can crave which can come you know because we're living in our fleshly nature in a fallen world can creep up you know this title will remind us of who we are where we were and what is our calling what are we called to do we are called not to you know do our own plans our agendas our will but we are called here to be to be totally dependent on Christ and to do what he wants us to do and then he says you know in the introduction Timothy our brother so maybe Timothy was probably with Paul when he was writing this letter so he mentions Timothy's name maybe Philemon knows about Timothy as well so he's sending his greetings and then he's writing this letter to Philemon anyone who has any idea who Philemon was from what I basically spoken about in the introduction your personal understanding who was Philemon come on I said so many things about him so maybe some of you can point out one or two things about who Philemon is Philemon was are all of you in class we just have six of you but I hope all of you are in class I just spoke about Philemon so anyone could say some things about Philemon come on at least one or two points this is very sad there's no class participation you know none of you put on your mics and speak sometimes I just have to continue with a two hour lecture which can be very boring I don't even know some of you are there in class listening it's very demotivating okay Dave says he's a Gentile who came to faith thank you so from what I basically said in the introduction we saw that you know Philemon had slaves because honest and this was his runaway slave which means he's a rich man you know and you know so we also know that he lived in the city of Colosse because you know Taitikis takes this letter to you know takes this letter to Colosse where Philemon is living and we also see from verse one you know that the church assembled in his house you know he says to you know he gives greetings to a Pia, archipelago, fellow soldier and to the church in your house that means a church used to meet in Philemon's house so maybe he has a big house because a rich man he has a big house where he can accommodate a church yeah thank you Dave so he lived in Colosse he had a slave who had run away from him okay thank you so we see that he had a church who would gather in this house we also see that you know he's a convert of Paul had led him to accepting Christ we know this from verse 19 where he says not to mention that you owe me or very self that means you know it was through Paul's ministry that Philemon had accepted Christ he might have been converted by Paul when Paul was ministering in Ephesus or anywhere else but it's probably in Ephesus because in Acts the book of Acts Dr. Luke who writes the book of Acts mentions about this in Acts chapter 19 verse 9 where it says that you know Paul was reasoning every day in the synagogue but since the people were so hard-hearted they didn't want to listen they spoke evil of him so he withdrew from the crowd from teaching in the synagogue and for two years he taught at the school of tidiness I also gave this deep introduction when we studied the introduction to First Timothy where we were talking about Paul's ministry at Ephesus and I said he for two years he basically daily reason or taught in the school of tidiness and we know many people from Asia heard the word many people accepted Christ they were built up in the faith and we see that these people go around Asia and they established churches even in an around Ephesus and so we see that the seven churches that are in in in the book of Revelation may have been also established by these people who were trained and taught in the school of tidiness so it was here that most probably you know Philemon would have been taught and had accepted Christ Jesus as his personal savior we also see that you know he was a wealthy man so he had slaves he had a house meeting in his sorry church meeting in his house and also we know that he was a very kind and generous person towards fellow believers fellow Christians and Paul mentions this and writes about this in verses five to seven and also we see that he would accommodate many Christian believers who be traveling around accommodate them in his house which and that's what Paul says I'm going to come so prepare a place for me in your house and he mentions this in verse 22 now Paul addresses Philemon as a beloved friend and a fellow laborer so this shows a deep personal relationship that Paul shares with his co-workers fellow laborer would mean that you know it would be reasonable for us to assume that Philemon was the church was the leader of the church at Colosse and not archipis as some of the scholars say and in verse two we read that you know Paul mentions a pia archipis and you know our fellow soldier and to the church in your house so probably a fear was Philemon's wife and some scholars say archipis was their son some say archipis was the pastor of the church that was meeting in Philemon's house but we see the same a pia not mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament but as the customs of in those days you know it was the wife who was basically who supervised the slaves in the household and hence this whole letter even what Paul is writing about Onesibus concerned her as well so he mentions her name and we find this name archipis in Colossians chapter 4 verse 17 that Paul admonishes him concerning his work he says and say to archipis take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it so he admonishes him there and tells him to take heed of the ministry which God which he has to see from the Lord and fulfill it now Paul is saying archipis are fellow soldier so archipis may have been a christian teacher in Colossae and that is why Paul calls him as a fellow soldier and probably he would be a member of Philemon's family as well and the church that meets in your home I already said that in those days people believers not have property of their own for church buildings they met in the houses and hence we see there was a church meeting or gathered at at Philemon's house so there were many house churches in a city and the bishop would oversee the different house churches and verse 3 he says grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ we know grace and peace is a very customary greeting found in each one of Paul's letters I've already spoken about explain about this in detail when we studied first Timothy and Titus introduction as well but we see in this greeting since it is it's not to a church gathering but more to an individual this he makes this letter very unique among Paul's writings Philemon you know really is a personal note written by Paul to one man and so you know we see that he says God our Father okay and I'll explain to you what it means by saying God our Father but we know that grace mercy and peace comes from God he's a source he's a one who blesses us or he's a one who blesses our lives with grace mercy and peace now unlike other epistles Paul does not say God the Father but here he says God our Father which means that he's talking about God who is a Father to us and so it's basically he's stating and trying to make this you know very obvious that obvious about the fatherhood of God by giving the title God as our Father God the Father so what Paul is basically saying or reminding Philemon is irrespective of our social standing you know irrespective of our position or our status in society once we are all believers you know we have we belong to one family we have one father that is God and hence you know we are all his children and we need to see each other as children of the same family and under the fatherhood of God so Paul says whether we are slaves or whether we are free whether we're male female Jew gentle we're all one in Christ Jesus and so he's not using you know not saying God you know he's not God the Father but he's saying that God our Father so he's talking about our position and how we are all one in one family because God is our Father okay and here you go talks about Philemon's love and faith in verses four to seven so can one of you please read verses four to seven please verses four to seven anyone would like to read I always thank my God I remember you in my prayers because I hear about your love for all these holy people and your faith in the Lord Jesus I pray that your partnership with us and the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ the love has given me great joy and encouragement because you're because you brother have refreshed the hearts of the Lord's people thank you Siddharth so here Paul is saying in verse four I thank my God that means he's telling Philemon that he had been such a blessing to Paul that he often prays for him and you know he's very grateful to God for Philemon and he gives thanks to God for Philemon we see that he says making mention of you always in prayers so we see that the making mention means that Paul did not always pray long intricate prayers for Philemon but he would often when he remembers Philemon he would often mention Philemon in his prayer and thank God okay for him I think this is a good thing that we can also learn you know there are different people to our different stages in our lives who've helped us in our faith journey in our faith walk whether it's been our pastors in the past whether it's been Sunday school teachers mentors in the youth ministry who have mentored us you know when you remember them sometimes we can just give thanks to God for their lives for you know the inputs in our lives for what they have you know done to minister to us just giving thanks here okay and also maybe you know write to them you know once in a while connect with them some healthy way of maintaining personal relationships and also to know how much that person has their inputs their ministry in your life has been so beneficial as what it has done for you so it's a good thing that we can also give thanks to God and also connect with them and thank them for their inputs for their for their mentoring and for their you know help in our lives and what's why he says hearing of your love and faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints now Paul had led Philemon to Christ and his faith Philemon's faith had demonstrated itself in a deep love for believers for fellow believers for fellow human beings especially those who were the household of faith that is those of the church those who shared in Christ's love Philemon was someone who demonstrated his deep love for believers by being very hospitable to them by sharing his resources by you know having people stay who believe us were journeying having them stay in their house taking care of their needs so we see that you know his faith was attested by works okay and that is what we read also in James chapter two where James says you know if you have faith and do not have good deeds then your faith is good as dead okay so he says you need to have faith and good deeds go hand in hand if you say you have faith in Jesus Christ then the saving faith that has saved you that salvation that you receive by faith because of the grace of God the mercy of God that same saving faith that has saved you should show itself in good works and I remember talking about this in our last class when we were talking about the book of Titus towards the end you know we talked about faith and good works we also need to put our faith in action and in James chapter two James talks about Abraham and and Rehab Abraham put his faith in action how you know in total obedience when God said you know sacrifice or one and only son son of promise he was willing to sacrifice his faith went to the extent that he was willing to obey God to any extent even giving up his only son and Rehab was a Gentile who's not even known God not thought about God but he's heard about everything God has done for the Israelites she puts a faith in him this faith and trust you know saves her and the family when they come the Israelites come to attack the city okay so our faith should be demonstrated if we say we have faith in Jesus Christ it should be demonstrated in good works it should be demonstrated in action in the way we we trust God total trust in him and also total obedience to his word and to his what he's asking us to do so the love of God in and through us that is shown in action is the best proof of our conversion and it's also shows that we are believers in Christ Jesus it's also a gospel that we don't necessarily have to preach or teach but is shown in action so you know our action speaks louder than words and our gospel is known through our actions to the love that we show to people whether they are believers or non-believers so silent love is not enough you know I'm sure you all know that if you tell somebody you love them and you don't show it in action that person is not going to be very long with us or is not even will only think that you know we only say but you know you really don't love and such a person would not even want to be with us so we show love in action to people who we really love and so if we love God you know if we say we have faith in Christ Jesus and the saving faith that has saved us you know the saving faith will translate itself into good deeds and actions that we in total obedience and trust in God and then he says hearing of your love and faith so Paul thank God for filiment because of his love and faith first towards Jesus and then towards all the saints now we know that the word saints in the New Testament is not that's not described a true Christian who's just somebody who's exceptional in their faith walk or their maturity but it's just referring to all believers okay and then in verse six says that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is which is in you in Christ Jesus now in this passage there is one verse which is very difficult to translate about which much has been written and this is you know finally in chapter one verse six and it's the phrase sharing of your faith which many you know commentary writers have found very difficult to understand to say what it really means because the Greek word for sharing is koinonia which also means fellowship and participation so the scholars basically say that there are three possible meanings for to understand this phrase sharing of your faith the first thing koinonia can mean a sharing in it can for instance mean partnership in a business so it basically means here that your share in the Christian faith and it might be a prayer that the faith which philemin and paul share in may lead philemin deeper and deeper into christian faith so it might be a prayer that the faith paul's prayer for philemin that the faith with philemin and paul share may lead philemin deeper and deeper into christian truth so that is one understanding the second one here about sharing which means koinonia which means fellowship it can mean that you know this can be a paul would have made a prayer that christian fellowship may lead philemin even more deeply into the truth okay so that is a second understanding that is prayer for philemin that even as philemin you know fellowships with fellow believers it may lead him even more deeper into the truth in god's word the third thing can mean an act of sharing so in this case it will mean that it's paul's prayer that the way philemin is generously sharing all that he has with fellow believers will lead him more and more deeply into the knowledge of the good things which lead to christ and so the scholars probably say that it is the third one that is probably correct because basically paul here is talking about and praising philemin's generous acts and deeds which is a characteristic of philemin and the love that he had towards god's people and the home that was a place of rest and refreshment for many believers and so paul is praying that even as philemin is you know more and more generously sharing all of his resources with people that will lead him more and more deeply into the knowledge of the things of christ so paul is saying or paul is asking that you know this generous man we grow more generous that will lead him into the knowledge of the things of god okay so that is basically the confusion that is there about this phrase and what is the right understanding the sharing of your faith possibly paul means the sharing of material things that are prompted by faith so paul here speaks here of the works of charity in which philemin bounded towards believers and also towards poor christians in verse seven he says for we have great joy and consolation in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you brother okay so paul has himself derived great joy and encouragement from philemin's love his hospitality many times and he's just stating it here affirming it here and he also remembers how wonderfully philemin had met the needs of other christians by refreshing their hearts and this is not something that this he does occasionally philemin does occasionally but these are things that he's regularly doing you know and which is having lasting effects on people okay so he's not somebody who does it once in a while but who's doing these regular acts of good deeds of charity of of you know showing hospitality to people and this is having a great impact a great effect in the lives of the people who are visiting him staying in his house and also the church that is meeting in his house so you know as christian uh you know some of us in the pastoral ministry some of us are evangelists some of us are missionaries you know we've gone and stayed in you know when we've gone to preach or teach or minister in different places i'm sure you've been accommodated in homes of people you know it's good to just pause sometimes and thank god for their hospitality for what they have done the way they're taking care of you and also it's a good thing to just you know call them back ask how they're doing just thank them for you know what they have done and just pray for them and bless them in jesus name and also it reminds us that you know we as ministers of god sometimes we want people to minister to us we always stand on the receiving end but we also should be standing on the giving end you know uh we would also have people come and stay in the house we need to be we need to be open to that we need to open our homes to people to come and stay men and women of god and just minister to them okay uh just like philemon did who was a leader of the church who had a church uh in his home so it's important that you know when people see our faith along with our good deeds it just talks more about the love of christ for any questions as far any doubts sorry we've have moved way past our break time taken two minutes extra so we'll stop here we'll come back after 10 or two i'll give you two minutes extra we'll come after 10 over 10 or two and then we'll continue with our class and then if you have any doubts you can ask okay you take a break now


I have a lot of humor in my designs. I will do curse words, body parts, and like, illegal things. My name is Sigourney Morrison, and my business is dressed New Orleans. My grandmother did a lot of cross stitching and hand embroidery. I would go visit her during the summertime, so we had a lot of different projects that we would do together. I do custom chain stitch embroidery on a chain stitch machine from the 1960s. It's all hand controlled, not computerized. All the designs are hand drawn by me. I like to really take my time and make sure that something is well thought out. I do a lot of creating in my mind. Anything will come to me, and I'll just jot it down in my notebook, and then I do sketches of stuff that I want to do, and then I refine the sketches to something easier to translate into chain stitching. It's kind of like a tattoo. Then I pick out the colors and the color scheme, and then I map it out and go from there. I want to reach more people and let people know that I'm doing this.  I didn't know you could do this. You can do this? I'm like, yes, I can do this. So I really want to communicate in an easier way through a website. Are you ready? I'm so ready! All right. Boom. Your site is live. How do you, how do you? All the time it works. I feel good. This is like the next step. The digital presence is extremely important, even though it's really hard for me at this point in time. That's not my expertise. My expertise is making the things that I want to get out there. I really get a lot of enjoyment no matter what I do. Doing something individual, like it's really close to the customer, to make something that they really want that's very specific and very personal. I get to connect with the customer one-on-one and get to see what their personality is like and be able to suggest things to them that they might not have thought of. Once they start going, they just want more stuff and more stuff and more stuff. It's really important to have a community of people that you can bounce ideas off of. Amanda is a brilliant pattern maker and sewer, so designers come to her and then she makes their idea materialize. In addition to the chain stitching, we are actually making the full outfit now. So no longer are you having to bring something that you already have to get stitched. We can do the whole thing. I want to be a one-stop kind of shop for the website. Be able to show a calendar where I want to be if you want to come, do flash sales and be able to show off some of my recent things that I've done with the customers. The website is working out really well. I posted all my events on it, so it's working out. Nice. So what's next as far as your business goes? I think brand awareness is probably the number one goal. I use the hashtags that I'm supposed to. Hashtag chain stitch, hashtag singer 114W103. That's like the normal ones that people look up and people know what they're looking for, but they don't know how to say it. A lot of people just really let me do what I want to do and they trust that I have my own style. It's like a little bit country, a little bit rock and roll probably, and that's super overused. But then also a little bit funny. I would rather have a happy customer see the look on their face that they really like something or even cry than make something that's mass produced that a lot of people will like. I know that's probably counterintuitive as far as business goes.