WWUTT 1880 Q&A Asbury Revival, He Gets Us, The Chosen Review

Is the Asbury Revival a legitimate revival? Can you find the

Gospel of Jesus Christ anywhere on the He Gets Us website? And what exactly is the bad doctrine in the

Chosen? The answers when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of God that we may comprehend with all the saints how wide, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ.

Tell all your friends about our ministry at www .tt .com. Here once again is

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Who is not with me today, I am flying solo. And I'm sorry for waiting so long to get this episode posted.

I was not able to get this done in time for Friday. It's dated for Friday, even though I'm posting it later in the weekend.

Still playing catch up, too. I want to post the blog that I did earlier in the week about my exchange with Timothy Dahl -Rempel, the

CEO of Christianity Today. I asked him whether or not he was

LGBTQ affirming. And you can read that exchange by going to PastorGabe .com, or I'll publish the audio of that blog, and it'll be dated right here for Saturday.

Then I intend on publishing my sermon Sunday as well.

February 19th and 26th, I'm going to be preaching at Providence Church in Marshall, Texas.

Pastor Jason is in India right now, and he has asked me to preach in his absence.

So I'm thankful for him asking, but also sending prayers for him that the work that he is doing there in India will be fruitful and the gospel will be proclaimed with boldness.

As the Apostle Paul had asked the Ephesians at the end of his letter to them, he said, pray that an opportunity would be given to us and we would preach with boldness.

That the gospel would have its intended effect. It would do the work that God means for it to do.

So while I am preaching in Pastor Jason's absence, I am going to be in John 3 on February 19th, and then

John 4 on the 26th. So we go from Jesus and Nicodemus, and then the next week to the exchange between Jesus and the

Samaritan woman at the well. If you're able to make it out to Providence Church in Marshall, that's not too far away from Lyndale.

You're always welcome to come join us at First Baptist Church in Lyndale too. Daryl Harrison is going to be preaching at First Baptist in Lyndale on Sunday night,

February the 19th. This being the Friday edition of the broadcast, although published later, but it is still the

Friday edition. We take questions from the listeners, and you can submit those questions too when we understand the text at gmail .com.

I have had several requests for the episode that I did a few weeks back.

Actually, this was two episodes, where I covered all eight episodes of Season 1 of The Chosen.

I did four on one Q &A, and then I did another four episodes on another Q &A.

But there's been folks who have been asking me, can you put that together in a blog so I can share it with some other people? So I've done that, and most of this episode is going to be the audio of that blog.

So that's coming up here in just a little bit, and you can find that blog at pastorgabe .com.

It's very simply entitled, A Review of Season 1 of The Chosen. And as I have opportunity,

I will do a review of Season 2 sometime later on. Have you heard about the so -called revival that is taking place at Asbury University?

Here is how one news story leads into this. On the campus of a small Christian college in Wilmore, Kentucky, a massive worship service has been rolling nonstop for nearly two weeks.

The event at Asbury University is so popular, people have flown from across the country, standing in line outside the college's main chapel for an opportunity to take part in the singing, praying, and discussion unfolding within.

So in light of all this news that's been going on about the Asbury revival,

I asked this question on Twitter on Wednesday, do you believe that what's been happening at Asbury University, a private

Christian school, is a genuine, spirit -filled revival? 1 ,096 people responded, and 8 .2

% said yes, it's a genuine, spirit -filled revival, just 8 .2%.

26 .8 % said no, 55 .3 % said time will tell, and 9 .7

% said I haven't been following. I think that's a good, mature response to this, to say time will tell, but I think enough signs have been given to us that this is not a legitimate, spirit -filled revival.

And what do I mean by that? What would a legitimate revival look like? Well, first of all, revival is not a term that we find in scripture.

There aren't parameters of a revival that are given in the Bible. That's not to say that a revival can't be a real thing, but we have to be careful by what we call a revival.

If you see a bunch of people acting emotionally in a religious or Christian setting, that doesn't automatically indicate a revival.

So what are we primarily looking for when we talk about revival? There really needs to be two ingredients.

There needs to be a faithfulness to the word of God. The gospel is clearly being proclaimed.

And then secondly, there is a lot of repentance going on. So we're looking for faithfulness to scripture and repentance.

Those are the two marks of genuine revival. However, with this thing that's going on at Asbury University, if you go to the sermon that was first preached that set this whole thing off, the gospel was not proclaimed in that sermon.

And that's not just my word. Don't just take my word for it. Justin Peters has said the same thing. I had a conversation with him about it this weekend, and I've talked to some others who were there as well.

I talked to my dad. My dad remembers the Asbury revival that happened back in the 70s.

So this isn't a new thing. This has happened at this place before. My dad was big into the

Jesus movement back in the 70s. He was friends with a lot of the Christian musicians that were big at that time, including

Keith Green. My dad was friends with Keith Green. So he remembers all of that, kind of the revivals that would sprout up in different places, including the one that happened at Asbury.

And he listened to the sermon that set this whole thing off, and he said the same thing to me. The gospel was not clearly proclaimed in that sermon.

So given that that's how this whole thing launched, it's difficult to say then that this could be a legitimate revival, spirit -filled, leading people to truth and redemption when the gospel is not even clearly articulated.

There are the usual things going on that you will witness happening in a lot of charismatic circles, like there's healings, there's casting out of demons, there's a lot of songs that sound like mostly

Bethel and Hillsong. Several people that I've talked to said they heard songs that were the typical 7 -Eleven songs.

It's the same seven words sung 11 times. I've had friends who have gone there to Asbury to witness it for themselves, and I've had mixed reports, even from friends whom

I trust. One friend said that he sat for two hours, never heard the gospel, heard a lot of music, saw a lot of dancing around and stuff that to him looked like charismatic foolishness, but never heard the gospel nor any kind of call to repentance.

But another friend of mine went and sat for an hour, and he did hear the gospel proclaimed, and he thought that the doctrine that was being preached was rather solid.

He went outside and talked to some of the students, and they had a good knowledge of the scriptures and seemed to be very testing and examining of these things that are going on.

He also said to me that there are other revivals that are happening at other college campuses. Now that could be a copycat thing, but he's being cautiously optimistic.

Maybe the Lord is moving in such a way among young people and bringing about revival. Pray that Christ would be proclaimed.

If Christ is not exalted, if doctrine is not sound, if the gospel is not being preached, if there's not a call to repentance, if people are not turning from their sin, then there's not revival.

I remember an article a few years back. I think this was in the Cripplegate. I don't remember for sure, but there was an article about the greatest revival in history, and they said the greatest revival in human history is recorded in the book of Jonah.

It was when Jonah preached to Nineveh, repent for the judgment of God is coming upon you.

What happened? The people repented. An entire revival swept across a massive, huge city, hundreds of thousands of people that lived in this city.

Revival broke out, and the people repented of their sin, and they turned to the

Lord. Of course, Jonah hated it, because he wanted the Ninevites to be wiped out. You know that story.

You can go to the book of Jonah and read it. It's not very long. It's just four chapters, but anyway, it's because the word of God was proclaimed, and the people heard it, and their hearts were stirred to turn from their sin.

Revival breaks out among a people. That is the greatest revival in the history of mankind, but what was the key ingredient to that revival?

Repentance. The truth was proclaimed, and the people repented. If that's not what's going on in your revival, or this thing that's being called a revival, then it's not really a revival, right?

Really a revival. That's hard to say. Anyway, a reader named Eric contacted me, and he said, hello,

Brother Gabe. Someone I know was discussing with me about the revival going on in Kentucky, and they sent me this, and here's the comment that this woman sent.

Her name is Lauren, and she said, I don't see other revivals or spiritual awakenings in Reformed churches or Baptist churches across the

U .S. How come? Eric said, how would you respond to this? You have better articulation than me when it comes to these questions.

I don't know about that. It kind of depends on the day, I think, but I responded to Eric, and I said, I don't see revivals happening in the

Charismatic churches either. I see them chasing emotional nonsense and calling it a revival.

Reformed churches don't need revived. They're already vived. Anyway, I went on to say,

I'd ask what she thinks revival is. Does it have to look like the Charismatics do it?

If a church is deeply committed to the gospel, the teaching of sound doctrine, and moved to repent of sin, would that not be a revival?

Does it have to be a sudden outburst of transformation that happens all at once, or can it stretch out over a long period of time?

And Eric responded and said, fair enough. Charles Finney really did a number on American church culture.

Yeah, he sure did. And not just culture, but doctrine, easy -believe -ism, altar calls, all that kind of stuff, that was all mostly

Charles Finney -influenced. Speaking of evangelism, well, yeah, fake evangelism, let's say it that way.

Speaking of fake evangelism, I got on the He Gets Us website, and I decided

I wanted to have a chat with someone at He Gets Us. You know, they have like a little chat box that you can get on, and somebody connected with the ministry will respond to your questions.

He Gets Us, in case you don't know, this is a—we've talked about it on the broadcast before—it's basically

Jesus Needs New PR. I'm trying to find a good way to describe it. I wanted to call it evangelism or like video tracks, but it's not that at all, because they're not proclaiming the gospel, and you don't find the gospel through this ministry.

See, even that term doesn't work. So, okay, Jesus Needs New PR, that's He Gets Us.

They played a couple of commercials during the Super Bowl, maybe you saw them or maybe you heard about it.

This is now the most public that they've ever been. Now that they've gotten a couple of commercials on during the

Super Bowl, now all kinds of people know about He Gets Us. I've done a video on them, there's a what video, so if you go to YouTube and type in www .utthegetsus,

that will come up and it'll give you a minute and a half explainer of how bad they are and some of the things that they are doing.

Now some friends of mine and I, we've been on the chat box before and we've asked them questions about like homosexuality and abortion, but this time, especially with the videos being played during the

Super Bowl, I wanted to see if someone at He Gets Us would share the gospel with me.

So I went to hegetsus .com and I've noticed that the chat box is not as easy to find as it used to be.

There's things about the site that has changed, even some of the things that I said in my video are not on the

He Gets Us website anymore, so I might need to do an update. But anyway, I found the chat box and I started chatting with somebody and this fellow's name was

Richard and he says, hi, thanks for messaging into He Gets Us, what brings you to the chat?

And I said, hey, I saw your Super Bowl ad, are your videos telling me to do something?

And if so, what? And Richard replied, awesome, action only if you want to take action.

Which one did you see? And I said, the one about Jesus doesn't want us to act like adults.

What does that mean? That was a really stupid ad, by the way. So it showed a bunch of kids playing and it said

Jesus doesn't want us to act like adults. Well, that's contradictory to what

Scripture says. In 1 Corinthians 13, it says when I was a child, I acted like a child,

I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. And then later on in 1

Corinthians 16, act like men is specifically what it says.

So no, Jesus didn't want us to not act like adults. When we read in Matthew 18, unless you become like this child, you will not enter into the kingdom of God.

That is not saying act like children. That's not what that says. It means that just as a child can't do anything without relying on their parents, so we can do nothing without relying upon our

Heavenly Father. A child grows and learns by the discipline of their parents, and we need the discipline of our

Father who is in Heaven. If we don't get that, if we're not willing to listen to that, we don't enter into the kingdom of God.

That's what that means. It doesn't mean act like kids. So anyway, this fellow,

Richard, he responded to me and he said, when we say be childlike, we're referencing Jesus' teaching in Matthew 19, 14.

Jesus said, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.

Back in Jesus' day, children weren't regarded the same way they are today. This made his teachings around the value of being childlike countercultural, and he lived it out.

Childlike in humility, compassion, and gentleness. Hopefully that context helps.

Now, the funny thing about his answer, it came immediately, almost immediately after I asked that question and said, what does the ad mean?

So, he had a copy and paste somewhere. He was ready with that. Copied that answer and pasted it because that came to me way too fast for him to have typed all of that out.

And so, I responded to Richard and I said, okay, so what am I supposed to do? And Richard replied, what does that mean to you?

I said, I don't know. It sounds like a history lesson. So what? Richard said, did it make you think about how you act toward people?

Perhaps be kind to people? It's a reflection after watching it. And I said, no,

I think I am compassionate and gentle. And Richard said, that's great. So, I responded, okay, so that's it?

The point was just be compassionate and gentle? And Richard said, I mentioned our mission above. If that resonates with you, that's awesome.

We want people to see who Jesus is. And if you want to know more about who he is, that's what we're here for.

So, I said, why do I need to know more about him? Richard said, people believe

Jesus is the son of God who came to earth, died and was resurrected, then returned to heaven and is alive today.

And the mission of our campaign is to share that. The authentic Jesus of the Bible. I replied, okay, but what if I don't believe that?

And Richard said, I'm not here to tell you what to believe or what not to believe. Our campaign is open to anyone to ask questions.

And if you ever want to learn more about Jesus, we have some ways to help you. This is really quite astonishing.

Richard is not going to tell me what to believe. Does that sound anything like Jesus in the Bible? Mark 1, 15,

Jesus said, repent and believe the gospel. Yes, he absolutely told us what to believe.

He told us to turn from sin and believe in him. And those who will not believe will perish.

John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by me. Richard's not giving me any of that.

Nothing about turning from sin, turning to Jesus, the judgment of God is going to come upon me if I don't repent and turn to Christ.

It almost sounds like with his answers he doesn't even really want to talk to me. Hey, if you want to ask a question, then ask it, but I don't really have anything to tell you otherwise.

So I did ask him, like, what can you tell me about Jesus? And he said, if you have questions about faith and what it means, we partner with Alpha, which is a small group for asking questions.

Who is Jesus? What is faith? And more, of course, but it's all about exploring what's out there.

And I laughed and I said, so I have to go to another chat on another site? And he said, it's not a chat.

It's a small group setting, in person or virtual. Anyway, point being, I got to go to another site to get my questions answered, even though he said, if you have questions,

I'm here to answer them. You don't get the gospel in the He Gets Us ads.

You don't get the gospel on their website. You don't even get the gospel from the people that will chat with you on their website.

He Gets Us is not about Jesus. They don't get Jesus. And you don't either, if you're trying to find him through that particular campaign.

Now, I'm planning on doing more of these. I want to have some chat conversations with people on their chat site and see if I can actually get somebody to share the gospel with me.

And then I'll either report back on this broadcast or I might write a blog.

I might do that. So without further ado, let me get to that. This is the blog that I wrote reviewing the first season of The Chosen.

I'm going to do a little musical segue here, and then you'll hear me come in with this. So you can find this blog.

I'm going to post it on Sunday. It's not posted yet. But you'll find it at PastorGabe .com.

And if you want to share it with people who are asking, like, what is the problem with the content that's in these episodes anyway?

You say that they twist scripture. We'll show me how. And that's what I'm doing here. A review of season one of The Chosen.

Pastor Gabe's blog for February 19th, 2023. Unless you've been living out in the desert eating locusts and wild honey, you've never heard of The Chosen, a crowdfunded streaming series about the adventures of Jesus and his disciples.

The show is made by Protestant Dallas Jenkins, starring Catholic mystic Jonathan Rumi as Jesus, and distributed through Mormon -owned

Angel Studios. In addition to having hundreds of millions of views online, the episodes are being translated into 600 languages and will be adapted into a series of novels and comic books.

Yes, the show, based on the Bible, will have its own books that are not the

Bible. At the present, The Chosen is more watched than Star Wars, with more favorable feedback than Marvel or DC.

Most evangelical voices, even among people whose opinions I respect, are highly praising of the show.

Of course, there are the usual players like K -Love and CBN, or Ed Stetzer and Greg Laurie, who are going to gush to the clouds over any

Christian medium that's pragmatic and popular. But even Kirk Cameron, Ali Beth Stuckey, and Johnny Erickson Tata have given very favorable reviews.

I didn't begin watching the show until a few months ago, and it doesn't seem any different to me than the Bible miniseries or its spin -off movie,

The Son of God, from the previous decade. I am not opposed to any and all tellings of Bible stories in television and cinema, though I do think all cinematic depictions of Jesus will always be foolish, as I'll mention later.

But as a pastor who is responsible for teaching sound doctrine and rebuking those who contradict it—Titus 1 .9—I

will warn against anything that adds to, takes away from, twists, or diminishes

Scripture. The Chosen is not merely entertainment. It is teaching something about Christ and His Word.

What is it teaching? That's what I want to explore in this review of all eight episodes of the first season.

In the beginning. Season 1, Episode 1 begins with the following disclaimer.

Quote, The Chosen is based on the true stories of the Gospels of Jesus Christ. Some locations and timelines have been combined or condensed.

Backstories and some characters or dialogue have been added. However, all biblical and historical content and artistic imagination are designed to support the truth and intention of the

Scriptures. Viewers are encouraged to read the Gospels. The original names, locations, and phrases have been transliterated into English for anything spoken.

Unquote. Many of the show's defenders have said, See, they encourage you to read the Gospels.

But even Satan has read the Gospels. I used to be ensnared by the teachings of Rob Bell, and he encouraged his hearers to be good

Bereans and test him with the Scriptures. Of course, what he deceptively meant was, You need to twist the

Scriptures the same way that I do. There is very little of the Chosen that is faithful to what the

Bible says, even the intention of what it says. By his own admission, show creator

Dallas Jenkins has said, 95 % of what's in the show is not in the Bible. We operate from this question.

Is this plausible? He said, Whatever we write, if it didn't come from Scripture, is this plausible culturally, historically, and does it fit within the character and intentions of Jesus and in the

Gospels, even if it's not directly from them, or even if we don't know if it's fact or not.

Unquote. That's some shrewd sleight of hand from having to avoid the question. Is this biblical?

But I hope that you're able to glean from this critique that even what Jenkins would classify as plausible is not biblically plausible.

Scripture warns us not to go beyond what is written and gives us the reason why so that no one of you will become puffed up on behalf of one against the other.

1 Corinthians 6 .4 This causes division, not unity. It produces bad fruit, not good fruit.

This is dangerous. What the chosen is doing, and it's leading people to error, not the

Savior. So not to be overly critical, I tried to find something to like about every episode, and I will also give my thoughts about what

I didn't like. Where the teaching or the doctrine was bad, I want to help you see that as well.

My heaviest criticism is in episode 7, which I believe best encapsulates the problem with the show overall, if you want to skip ahead.

Episode 1. I have called you by name. This episode mostly revolves around Mary Magdalene, who was called

Lilith and is demon -possessed. Nicodemus attempts to heal her and fails, but Jesus saves the day with his surprise appearance at the end of the episode.

We're introduced to future disciples, Matthew, Andrew, James, and John, the Pharisee Nicodemus, and a couple of Roman guards.

What I liked. Now, I do not want to start off sounding like a cynical curmudgeon, but I just did not like this episode.

Reaching for a compliment, I thought the interaction between Peter and his wife was sweet, but then she called him stoic.

It wasn't some passing word. They made a big deal out of it. There's no way she, a

Jewish woman, would have called her Jewish husband something Greek, and that would have been considered a compliment.

I'm a pastor committed to biblical faithfulness. Even these small things are going to stick out to me.

I heard so much about how accurate the show is, and how the writers consulted experts, and have all these advisors.

I have Bible consultants that I work with, Jenkins said. I go through a lot of research, a lot of prayer.

We take this very, very seriously. I saw no evidence of that in this first episode.

If they can't handle the small, obvious stuff, well, I'm not optimistic about how they'll handle big subjects.

What I didn't like. Among other careless mistakes, the attire is wrong.

Men wore an inner tunic, then an outer tunic, then a cloak when it was cooler, Matthew 540, John 21 7.

Women wore head coverings. The costumes look like most church plays, not high -quality film and television.

I noticed their homes are nice and roomy as well. I'll only mention this once, and then

I'll digress on any further costume or hair decisions. There's a scene that begins with a subtitle telling us it's the

Sabbath, which the show refers to as Shabbat, and I don't understand that decision. The first thing we see is

Peter carrying a bucket around town. A man was not even permitted to carry his own mat,

John 5 10. Why is Peter carrying a bucket in the middle of the day? A few scenes later, it's night, the sun is down, yet Nicodemus makes a comment about it still being the

Sabbath. The Sabbath ended at sundown. The first time we are introduced to Jesus, he encounters

Mary Magdalene in a tavern. A tavern? In Judea? And Jesus was there?

Not plausible. They go outside, and Jesus calls her by her real name. She's been called

Lilith up to this point, and casts out her demons. The scene was not as dramatic nor as shocking as the music underscoring the action tried to make it.

The depiction of demon possession and exorcism could have been way more emotional and thrilling.

Mary never appeared to be demon -possessed. She just seemed out of sorts. Many American Christians believe anything inconvenient is

Satan tormenting me, and that's what this reminded me of. In my notes,

I wrote, perhaps the writing will improve? If all I had to go off of was this episode of the first season,

I'd not have continued watching. In the book, Jesus Calling, Jesus sounds like the voice of a middle -aged

American woman pretending to be Jesus. And the dialogue in this show sounds like that too.

A bunch of Americans role -playing as Bible characters. Any false doctrine?

Other than what was nuanced, I did not identify any obvious theological problems in the first episode.

Most of this was character building. But there was a scene where Nicodemus said to his wife,

Sometimes I wonder if what we can know of Adonai in the law is just as blurred.

What if we're not seeing the whole picture? What if it's more beautiful and more strange than we could ever imagine?

His wife replied, That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. It's not the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, but it's easy to see what they're doing.

This is foreshadowing that Jesus is more beautiful and more strange than we could ever imagine.

Episode 2, Shabbat. As the name of the episode suggests, the plot has mostly to do with celebrating the

Sabbath. Tension builds for Peter, who needs to pay his taxes, and Matthew, who works for the Romans to collect taxes.

Nicodemus asks questions about a man performing miracles. What I liked. Mary describes her exorcism to Nicodemus, who inquires of the mysterious man who healed her.

Unable to explain what happened, she says, I was one way, and now

I am completely different, and the thing that happened in between was him. I like that line.

However, we're talking about a miracle here. This isn't merely the testimony of a sinner turned saint.

This was a woman possessed by seven demons whom Jesus cast out,

Luke 8 .2. She would have said something more along the lines of, Did you not see me yourself? I was possessed by seven demons, and he came and cast them out by the power of God.

The show regularly settles for dialogue that significantly downplays the incredible action of the actual biblical story.

What I didn't like. Why does it seem like all of the Roman guards are bald, and what's with all of them wearing capes?

Sorry, I said I wouldn't make further criticisms about hair and costume, didn't I? This plot, with Peter turning over Jewish merchants to the

Romans for money, is not working. We're to believe that Peter, who would not eat with Gentiles before the

Lord told him to, Acts 10 .14, and later he went back to refusing to eat with the Gentiles because he feared the

Jews, Galatians 2 .12, was involved in a plot with the Romans to rat on his own kinsmen? James and Thaddeus are shown to be

Jesus' first disciples. Scripture says that Peter and Andrew were the first disciples, Matthew 4 .18,

Mark 1 .16, John 1 .40 -41. There have been other portrayals of Bible stories that are more accurate than this is in these kinds of details.

Will the show depict that all of Jesus' disciples were actually present at his baptism before they were his disciples?

See Acts 1 .21 -22. John the Baptist has not been mentioned yet, and his ministry was the biggest thing happening in Judea at this time.

Episode 3, Jesus Loves the Little Children. The plot of this episode revolves around Jesus' interaction with a group of kids who discover him living by himself in a tent in the woods.

The plot thickens with Peter needing to pay his taxes and helping the Romans, but frankly, that story is completely uninteresting.

What I liked, Jesus playing with the children was cute. What I didn't like, correction on the previous episode where I said

James and Thaddeus were revealed to be the first disciples of Jesus. According to something Jesus said to the children he meets,

Mary Magdalene is his first disciple. Among the children, there is a girl who is clearly the leader of them.

The show is revealing its egalitarian influences. Any false doctrine? Not exactly.

This episode tried to show a more human and even playful side to Jesus, but as I said earlier, this is a fool's errand.

No sinful man can accurately portray the sinless son of God, both king and servant.

The Bible says the crowds were astonished at his teaching because he spoke as one having authority,

Matthew 7, 28 -29. Jonathan Rumi does not have that kind of presence.

He is another buddy Christ. He's just a nice guy. Episode 4,

The Rock On Which It Is Built. Peter has been dishonest with his wife and really needs to catch fish in order to pay his taxes.

Andrew, James, John, and Zebedee help him out. The episode ends with them meeting Jesus who gives them a miracle catch.

What I liked, the miracle of the great catch was an awesome scene. The best scene in the show so far and will turn out to be the best scene in the first season overall.

However, after the miracle, Peter asks Jesus, you are the

Messiah, yes? And Jesus says he is. In Luke 5, 8, Peter does not have to ask

Jesus that. By the miracle he just witnessed, he truly knows and immediately bows himself before him knowing he's unclean.

What I didn't like, finally John the Baptist comes up in this episode. He's mentioned in a meeting among the

Pharisees as a preacher of a populist message. They're all vexed because he calls them out as snakes.

However, the Pharisees have not been depicted as anyone menacing up to this point. The only enemies in the show have been the

Romans. This is poor narrative building. Faithfulness to the text aside, it's just not good writing.

I understand wanting to throw in a little tension by showing Peter and his wife quarreling. I'm not opposed to that decision.

It's just not well written. And it revolves around an improbable plot device. This show was more watchable when

I was watching the YouTube clips. Seeing all of these clips in context is not nearly as impressive. And I wasn't that impressed to begin with.

Matthew owns a dog. A Jew would not have owned a dog. They were unclean animals.

You might call me nitpicky, but this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the source material. But again, faithfulness to the text aside, it's bad writing.

Matthew has been written as somewhat autistic and obsessed with cleanliness. Yet he has an unclean dog?

The whole episode centers on Peter's drama, who's trying to catch fish so he can pay his taxes to Rome. He's exasperated with God, and he complains that Israel was rescued out of Egypt only to be enslaved by the

Romans. His brother shows up, and James and John, they help him catch all the way until morning, and then they see a man on the shore talking to a small crowd.

This is, of course, Jesus teaching a small group of people. Now, when I say small crowd, I mean just a few dozen, less than 60.

In Luke's account of this encounter, the crowd is so large, Jesus gets into a boat and sets away from the land a little bit so he can address the whole crowd.

After teaching, he tells the disciples to set into deep water and cast their nets, see Luke 5.

The miraculous catch in this episode happens just a few feet offshore. I get that this was very early on in the creation of the show.

They probably didn't have the budget for more extras and costumes to actually display

Jesus talking to a huge gathering. That said, it would have been better for the writers to leave out

Jesus asking the disciples if he could get into their boat so the crowd could hear him better. With such a small assembly getting into the boat meant he was actually further away from them.

It just looked awkward. Any false doctrine? In this episode, the parable Jesus taught while standing in the boat was from Matthew 13, 47 -50, the parable of the dragnet.

The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind, and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach, and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away.

So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the fiery furnace.

In the show, after the miracle of the fish, Jesus asked Peter, did you understand that parable

I told earlier? From now on, I will make you fishers of men. You are to gather as many as possible, all kinds.

I will sort them out later. That is not the interpretation of the parable of the dragnet.

Just because Jesus told his disciples, I will make you fishers of men, Matthew 4, 19, that does not mean the fish in the parable of the dragnet are the fish caught by Jesus' disciples.

The fish in the parable of the dragnet represent all of mankind, wicked or righteous.

See verse 49. Secondly, when Jesus said, I will make you fishers of men, he did not also say, all kinds, as many as possible.

This sounds like attractional church language, as if the mission is to bring in as many people as we can using any means possible.

Calling the disciples to be fishers of men means they're going to preach the gospel, and God will do the work of bringing them in.

As Jesus had just put a multitude of fish in the disciples' nets by his will.

Episode 5, The Wedding Gift Everything in the episode revolves around the wedding at Cana, where Jesus will turn water into wine.

The plot includes family drama at a wedding and some humor about dancing. We meet Thomas in this episode, more commonly known as Doubting Thomas.

What I liked. The episode begins with Mary frantically searching for Jesus. This is the story from Luke 3 of a 12 -year -old

Jesus teaching in the temple. I like the exchange between Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, and it was a good setup for the miracle coming later in the episode when

Mary would ask Jesus to turn water into wine. However, Mary found Jesus in the market, and that's not what

Luke 2, 41 -52 records. Luke says they found him in the temple and were astonished at his teaching.

No one is really astonished at Jesus' teaching in this show. Perhaps they did not have a good temple setting to film the scene in,

I get it, but it's also a reminder that the narrative decisions the creators of the show make for the sake of drama are not better than the original story.

Thomas and his wife, Rema, are winemakers or party planners of some sort, which puts them at the wedding at Cana with Jesus.

We don't know the occupations of all the disciples or where they all were when Jesus called them, so this is certainly an area where creative liberties could be taken.

My one beef with this is that Jesus had all twelve disciples by this point. So far, he only has six.

Correction. In watching season two, I've come to discover that Rema and Thomas are not actually married.

So this young man and woman travel alone together? And they aren't married? What I didn't like.

Nicodemus went to visit John the Baptist in prison to interview him. He thinks John might be the guy

Nicodemus has heard about doing miracles. Why is John in prison? We don't know.

This is not the imprisonment by Herod as recorded in Matthew 14, Mark 6, and Luke 3. Nicodemus says

John was imprisoned by the Romans. This is a Roman cell, he says. But John never had a quarrel with the

Romans. In fact, according to Luke 3 .14, some Romans sought his teaching. But worse than this, in the show,

Nicodemus does not know who John the Baptist is. Every Pharisee would have known

John. He was known throughout Judea. John was not some mysterious figure.

He was the son of Zechariah, one of the priests in the temple. Yet Nicodemus, who is touted in this show as the teacher of teachers, is completely ignorant of this.

I hate the way they write John the Baptist. If the writers of the show want drama, they've got it in John the

Baptist. Through John, they could establish the Pharisees and the Sadducees as bad guys, which they haven't done yet.

They could build the tension of the coming Messiah, but he's just kind of shoehorned into the story at episode 5, and this particular conversation was silly.

Mary Magdalene is included as a disciple with the rest of the disciples. This is a modern depiction used in other recent

Jesus stories, like in Risen, the Bible miniseries, and Son of God. Luke 8 2 does say there were women with them sometimes, but Mary would not have been traveling as the one woman with a bunch of men.

Oh, but she was the first disciple, don't you know? When Peter tells his wife Eden that he is going to follow

Jesus, she is overcome with emotion. Peter thinks she's upset, but she's actually overjoyed.

This was what she always prayed for, she says. This just continues the theme that almost all of the women are perceptive, sensible, and right, and the men are mostly knuckleheads.

A similar thing happened with Thomas and Rhema in this episode. Thomas doubted, of course, but Rhema did everything

Jesus said. Episode 6 Indescribable Compassion Some more miracles are displayed in this episode, including

Jesus healing a leper and healing a paralyzed man who was lowered through a roof. What I liked.

Jesus healing the leper was a neat scene, but it was not according to the story in Luke 5, 12 -16.

In the show, Jesus healed the leper on a road with hardly anyone around. In Luke 5, he healed the beggar in a city.

The people saw it, and word spread quickly about Jesus' power to heal. Large crowds would gather to be healed of their diseases, but that's not depicted in the show.

There was also a great joke where a man said he heard about Jesus turning water into wine. He said, could you do that to the well by my house?

That was hilarious. The best written joke in the show so far.

At the end of the episode, Nicodemus pled with Mary Magdalene to speak to Jesus. I loved the genuineness of his desire.

Eric Avari, the man who plays Nicodemus, is by far the best actor in the show. In some scenes, he says some silly things.

That's a problem with the writing, but Avari is able to do a lot with so little. What I didn't like.

Once again, the women are smart, and the men are morons. There was a scene where Jesus was teaching at the inquiry of one of the women, not the men, and every question he asked, the women answered correctly, but the men could not.

In a scene where Jesus heals a lame man, the one who was lowered down through the roof, the disciples could not do anything to get him close to Jesus, but Mary Magdalene did.

Now, the humorous thing about the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus is it was a small crowd, like the one that was on the shore.

The crowd really wasn't that big, and there was plenty of space. The Pharisees pushed through just fine when they arrived.

There's also plenty of room in the house where Jesus is teaching. Maybe they didn't have the extras to fill the space, but I think a little more skilled camera work could have made it look more convincing.

The Romans rushed the house to arrest Jesus at the end because he had attracted a small crowd, and that was completely unnecessary.

This was done for the sake of tension, maybe to establish some kind of cliffhanger, but that was already there. Episode 7,

Invitations The episode starts with a flashback to Moses, which I'll explain in a moment.

Nicodemus finally gets to meet the miracle worker and ask him questions, and Matthew joins the other disciples.

What I liked This was another one of those episodes where, like the first one, it was hard to find anything to like.

I suppose I like when Jesus called Matthew to follow him, and he immediately abandoned his tax booth and obeyed.

However, the exchange between Jesus and Peter was super cheesy. Peter asked

Jesus, I don't get it, why him? Jesus said, you didn't understand when I called you either. Peter said, but this is different, he's a tax collector.

Jesus said, get used to different. Oh brother. When show creator Dallas Jenkins was interviewed by Ali Stuckey, he said he didn't want to get into making

Christian films and shows because they're generally bad. He claims God said to him, my people deserve good stuff too, so why don't you just make it better?

Not very humble of Jenkins to claim A. God told him to do this, and B.

that the chosen is better quality than most of the Christian campy stuff. It's not. It's exactly like the campy stuff.

What I didn't like. The quarrel between Joshua and Moses at the beginning was obnoxious.

It was not at all in the tone of the account we're given in Numbers 21 .6 -9.

There the people complained against Yahweh, even for the food he provided for them in the wilderness.

So, Yahweh sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died.

Then the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned because we have spoken against Yahweh and against you.

Pray to Yahweh that he may remove the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

That's verses 6 and 7. Then God told Moses to put a bronze serpent on a standard, and anyone who was bitten, if they looked at it, they would live.

But in the episode, Joshua comes in complaining like the Israelites, while Moses is hammering away on something metal.

Joshua says, We should send messengers and beg for aid. There is nothing in this exchange that establishes that the people sinned against God, that they were being punished as a result, and they acknowledged their sin and begged for mercy.

Joshua would have been on Yahweh's side, not on the side of grumbling sinful people.

See Numbers 14 1 -10. Dallas Jenkins also got the date wrong.

The subtitle said it was in the Sinai Peninsula in the 13th century, but it would have been in the 15th century.

This is the difference between asking Google and searching the Scriptures. The Exodus is calculated by the years given in 1

Kings 6 -1. Moses led Israel out of Egypt in 1446, and he died in 1406, when

Israel entered the Promised Land. If you ask Google when the Exodus was, it will tell you the 13th century

BCE. But if you ask it when the Israelites entered the Promised Land, Google's answer is about 1400

BCE. Jesus was in Peter's house and didn't heal his mother -in -law.

That was weird. When does that happen? Any false doctrine? As if the prologue with Moses and Joshua wasn't bad enough, the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus was infuriating.

For more reasons than I will list here, perhaps I will give a longer critique of this scene in another blog.

I believe this scene best exemplifies the problems with the show overall. I saw so many people gush over this scene, but it is not anything like the exchange that we read in the

Bible. John 3, 1 -2 says, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named

Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him,

Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.

In the Chosen, Nicodemus is about to explode with all kinds of questions.

When he finally settles on how to begin, the line in verse 2 is changed to this, I believe you are not acting alone.

No one can do these signs you do without having God in him. Only someone who has come from God.

According to John 3, Nicodemus is not some truth seeker, as he is depicted in the show. He is not speaking on his own behalf, but as a member of a council.

Jesus is not there to answer Nicodemus' questions. He is interested in only two things, truth and redemption.

Jesus replied to Nicodemus with an answer that sounded like he ignored Nicodemus altogether. Verse 3 says,

Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

But in the show, this conversation is led by Nicodemus, not by Christ, as it is in John 3.

Toward the end of their conversation in this episode, Nicodemus asks, Is the kingdom of God really coming?

Which you might notice was not a question Nicodemus asked in John 3. Jesus replies,

What does your heart tell you? Are you kidding me? What does your heart tell you?

Show me one place in the Gospels where Jesus said to trust or follow your heart. That's self -centered

New Age nonsense. If there's any one question he most often asks the Pharisees, he said,

Have you not read? In John 3, Jesus said to Nicodemus, Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?

Jesus rebuked Nicodemus, but in this episode, Nicodemus responds to that question by saying,

I'm trying, Rabbi. And Jesus sympathetically smiles and says, I know. This is a different Jesus and a different Nicodemus than what the

Bible records, having an altogether different conversation. Nicodemus responds to the,

What does your heart tell you? Question by saying that I am standing on holy ground. He then proceeds to bow before Jesus and Jesus says to him,

You don't have to do that. Nicodemus kisses his hand and Jesus says, What are you doing?

Have these writers gone mad? Have they not read? In the Gospels, there are about 20 recorded instances of someone bowing before Jesus.

And in not one of those instances did Jesus say, You don't have to do that.

What are you doing? They could have had Jesus reply, Do not fear, as he said to Peter in Luke 5 .10.

But the real Jesus wouldn't say, You don't have to do that. Everyone has to do that.

See Philippians 2 .5 -11. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord. As he kissed Jesus hand, Nicodemus recited Psalm 2,

Kiss the son lest he become angry and you perish in the way. But Jesus discouraging him from this act of humility, picked him up and said the rest of that verse,

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. It was delivered as if he was countering what

Nicodemus said. But the one who kisses the son is the one who takes refuge in him.

In John 3, the conversation begins and ends with Nicodemus, an unbeliever.

John opens by saying that Nicodemus came by night, which is a motif John uses throughout his gospel to demonstrate spiritual darkness.

In the show, Jesus invites Nicodemus to come with him. He hugs him and strokes his hair as Nicodemus cries on his shoulder,

I'm not even kidding. This scene is not in the Bible, nor is it even plausible.

By taking this scene out of context and rewriting the dialogue, all of the emphasis on truth and redemption is lost.

It's all about the feels. Episode 8, I Am He.

We start with a flashback to Jacob digging his well. Nicodemus ponders the invite Jesus gave him, but refuses so he and his wife can return back home.

Jesus and the disciples travel into Samaria. The climax of the episode is Jesus' conversation with the

Samaritan woman at the well. What I liked. Jesus finally healed Peter's mother -in -law.

She immediately got up and waited on everyone, just as it's recorded in Matthew 8, 14 -15, and it was cute.

What I didn't like, but the reason Jesus said he healed her was so Peter could travel with him and not worry about what was going on at home.

So is that why Jesus didn't heal her the first time he was in the house? Because Peter hadn't worried enough?

Taking the kinds of liberties they do with the story causes some deep theological issues I don't believe that they've thought through.

It's interesting that in this episode, a Pharisee said the law is God. Later on in the third season, as you may know from the controversy,

Jesus makes the statement, I am the law of Moses. So in this show, the law is

God, and Jesus is the law of Moses? Any false doctrine?

The season ends with the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and if the writers can't put the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in the right context, then the conversation between Jesus and the

Samaritan woman will be out of context too. The theme is still truth and redemption, but once again, the writers make this scene all about the fields.

As with the story in John 4, Rumi, Jesus asks the woman for a drink. The woman replies, you, a

Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan, and a woman? Rumi, Jesus responds,

I'm sorry. I should have said please. Yes, the sinless son of God apologized.

That seems plausible. I'm being sarcastic. After some back and forth, Jesus tells her, go and call your husband and come back.

She says, I don't have a husband. Rumi, Jesus says, you are right. You've had five husbands, and the man you're living with now is not your husband.

The woman says, oh, I see. You're a prophet and you're to preach at me. Rumi, Jesus responds, no.

Yes! That's exactly why Jesus was there. The whole town of Sychar would come to believe

Jesus is the Christ after two days of preaching that began with the testimony of this woman.

In Mark 1 .38, Jesus told his disciples, let us go elsewhere to the towns nearby so that I may preach there also, for that is what

I came out for. There hasn't been much false doctrine in these early episodes precisely because there's little teaching.

It's mostly backstory and character building, but whenever the writers actually do put in the teaching parts, it's really bad.

Not missing a few words here and there, but missing the point and the context entirely.

The truth is diminished and emotions are elevated. The scene ends with Rumi, Jesus, telling her about all of her husbands and he says,

I came here to Samaria just to meet you. That's not entirely wrong, but neither is it the point.

He came there to preach that he is the Christ. He revealed to this woman that he is the

Christ to be contrasted in the way he did not reveal himself to Nicodemus in the previous chapter, who was of the ruling class, so that she would go into Sychar and tell everyone and a whole village would get saved.

But the writers have already diminished his intention to preach and made it all about this encounter with this woman.

It's not about Jesus. It's all about you. When the disciples return from Sychar with food,

Rumi, Jesus, says to them, I have food that you do not know about. Andrew replies, who got you food?

It's a humorous moment, not unlike verse 33, but again, the show misses the point.

In John 4, the disciples return from exactly the place the woman ran to, in order to bring a whole town to hear the

Christ. The disciples didn't bring anyone, but the woman brought everyone.

In verse 34, Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work.

But that is not the Jesus of the chosen, which presents a fictional version of Jesus.

My friends, if the Jesus you're listening to is fiction, then he's a false

Christ. In conclusion, Jesus said to beware of false

Christs and false prophets. They are from the world, it says in 1 John 4, 5 -6, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world hears them.

We are from God, speaking of the true apostles, from the true Christ, the one who knows

God hears us. The one who is not from God does not hear us.

From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, gospel -teaching,

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study, When We Understand the