January 31, 2018 Show with Andrew Hyatt on “Paul: Apostle of Christ” PLUS Rob Ventura on “A Portrait of Paul: Identifying a True Minister of Christ”

The Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Opening and the Proverb About Sharpening One Another

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We were supposed to have Andrew Hyatt on for a half hour today, who is an award-winning director, and I think this may be him now. Andrew Hyatt is the director of a soon-to-be-released major motion picture titled Paul, Apostle of Christ that is due to be released this Easter, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Andrew Hyatt.

How are you, sir? I'm doing great, Andrew. I'm glad that you finally joined us. I'm glad, too. Thanks for having me on. Hey, it's my pleasure. Well, first of all, I want you to let our listeners know something about yourself.

I know that you are an award-winning director of a number of major motion pictures. Tell us something about yourself and how this particular project, a very important project in regard to cinema, especially for a Christian viewing audience, how did this fall into your hands, or is this something that you aggressively sought after?

But first, tell us something about.

Yourself. Well, let's see. I'm from a small town in Colorado called Longmont, been, you know, in Catholic schools all my life, and Los Angeles about 15 years ago, and I've been, yeah, pursuing the film dream, of course, but I had a major reconversion about seven years, and then just encountered Christ again, and it kind of flipped everything on its back, and film came from was just being so inspired by Paul's story, and Paul's life, and conversion, and just feeling like this is something that the world really needs to hear right now, you know, something so power, mercy, and God's love, and so it was, and I just found wonderful collaborators and a wonderful studio in Sony that really took.

It under their wing and helped us make a great film. Yeah, this is a film starring Jim Caviezel, who many of our listeners will remember from his role, starring role, as Jesus Christ in the Passion of the Christ film, Oliver, or should I say, Olivier Martinez?

Exactly, exactly. And James Faulkner, and who is playing the starring role of Paul the Apostle? It's James Faulkner,.

Who is a wonderful, wonderful British character actor. He's been around for many years. This is by far his biggest starring role in a major feature, and he is phenomenal, phenomenal, and he was so open to this transformation of really opening himself up to the heart of Paul, and really finding the man behind Scripture, and it's wonderful.

I'm excited for people to experience it. Well, great. Well, tell us about the approach that is being taken with this film in regard to the Apostle Paul. There have been many epic films about biblical characters, biblical stories.

Some have even traced or attempted to trace the Bible from Genesis to Revelation or something close to it, and so tell us specifically about the approach taken with this very key character in the New Testament.

Obviously, the Apostle Paul wrote more of the New Testament than any other author of the Holy Scriptures in regard to the New Testament, of course, and so tell us something about the approach that is specifically being taken here, where the movie picks up and the thrust of the major content of the film.

Absolutely. Well, we looked at Paul's life, and as you know, it's just an enormous, enormous palette of just, you know, it looks like he lived a hundred lifetimes, and so we tried to narrow it down to kind of what we felt an audience would find to be the most fascinating just portrait of a man is what we wanted to capture, and so we looked at 2 Timothy, and there's this just sort of surprising little nugget that starts to unfold as you read 2 Timothy, which is when Paul is in Rome for the second time.

He's been convicted and will be executed by Nero in Rome, and he's basically waiting in this cell, awaiting his death and writing this letter to Timothy, and there's this fascinating line that kind of pops up in there where he says that Luke is with him, and so we started to backtrack from that.

We said, wow, that's pretty fascinating. Okay, so Luke's here. Paul's in prison. He's writing 2 Timothy to kind of give his final word to the church, and we thought that that was just such a beautiful moment to capture, so that's really the thrust of the film is Paul at the end of his life, enormous, you know, he goes out and basically changes Western civilization as we know it, and we just tried to capture something of the man that we could bring audiences.

And I happen to be a very conservative evangelical Protestant, even more specifically a Calvinist, and the audience of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio tend to be people who are very studious in the scriptures.

They're very diligent to test all things according to the scriptures. They are very protective of the scriptures. When things are being depicted in film or in popular literature, they are very quick to point out inaccuracies and so on, and time and time again, movies, even if they are spectacular in regard to cinematography, in regard to acting, in regard to the scenery and the wardrobes being authentic and all these things, they very often will have scenes that are basically involving eisegesis in the scriptures, where the audiences are let down.

They're saying, oh, Jesus didn't do that, or Paul didn't say that, or, you know, and obviously, in moviemaking, you have to use a certain level of artistic license. But I understand one thing that has me optimistic about this film is that there seems to be a specific intention to maintain and preserve biblical authenticity in the creation of this film.

If you could tell us about that.

Absolutely, and I couldn't agree with you more on your assessment of Hollywood films in the biblical genre. But this is very important. Paul's story is that we're part of the team, and in the same way that you're saying, we really, really, really wanted to take it very seriously, very reverential, and really not take anything that we felt exactly creative license in a way that we couldn't, amongst us, amongst a great number of pastors, and really all say, okay, yes, maybe we don't have this line from Luke in the Gospels, in Acts, in, you know, what we can look at and what we can see in scripture.

We know that this to be true, and we really tried to stick with that. I don't, I feel confident that there's nothing in the film that is going to stick out to our audience, and it's my audience, and it's for me as well as your audience.

And so I didn't want to go and make something that I couldn't look at to be truthful.

And beautiful. So, in other words, sentences and so on, scenes that you had to create in order to have a realistically smoothly flowing film, other than just having verbatim quotes from scripture, the only way that you can stay exactly true to the scripture would be not to have any artistic license, and to just to have basically a narration of what the scripture says.

But when you're creating a film like this, you have to obviously fill in some of the gaps. So what you're saying is these gaps that are being filled in, you and your team did not believe that the sentences and words being added and the scenes being added changed the meaning of the text at.

All. Exactly, and we stayed, I think the audience will be very pleased and excited by the scripture that is woven into the film. Almost all of what Paul speaks to the community and to Luke is really scripture and heartful way that it doesn't feel, you know, like it's just somebody reading off of a text.

It really comes through and it shines in a way that I'm excited for people to hear for the first time. You know, we've been reading it, you know, many people in your audience, I'm sure, 20, 30, 40 years, but to hear Paul, to hear James Faulkner, you know, as Paul speak these words and for them to come alive in the context that we believe that they were said, it's really powerful.

And it's really moving. And so you do have, you mentioned before that there were pastors that I'm assuming were going over the screenplay and the scripts and so on to assist you in making sure that this film was biblically accurate?

Exactly, and you know, my father-in-law is a.

Pastor up in Washington and a teacher at Moody Bible and somebody that's been, yeah, been very, very helpful to me in my journey and someone that I can consistently bounce ideas off of,.

And he keeps me on the right track. Well, you said your father-in-law teaches at Moody?

Yeah, his name is John Repsol. He's a wonderful pastor up in Spokane, Washington, and just very, very keyed into the biblical nature of things, and he's somebody that I just trust a lot and.

Use a lot. Oh, I thought that he was on the faculty at Moody. I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. The reason why I was saying that is I have a very good friend, Eric Redmond, on the faculty of Moody. I was going to tell you to have your father-in-law say hello for me, but he's your.

Father-in-law's all the way in Spokane, Washington. Yeah, there's actually a Moody school out there as well. Oh, okay, it's an adjunct, I guess. Yeah, they ship a lot of the kids out from Chicago.

Out there. It's the overflow. Okay, well, one of the things that I don't know if there are images of Christ in this film, and as you may know, the Protestant world is divided over this. You have some, perhaps even more so from my background, who don't believe that a depiction of Christ should be seen or created in either paintings or sculptures or icons or even in movies.

But there are, I would say probably the majority of evangelicals today do not have a problem with that. They don't believe it is a violation of the second commandment. Just for the sake of just having more information, is Christ actually visibly present, obviously a portrayal of him,.

In this film? You know what, we wanted to, imaginations and this, I'll tell you that much, we catch a glimpse, I'll tell you that much. But here's what he looks comfortable doing,.

And we think this was a beautiful way to. Yes, I understand. And one of the things that troubled some evangelical Protestants, particularly perhaps either fundamentalists or reformed Christians. From my background, even though they may have viewed the Passion of the Christ film as a cinematic masterpiece, and some of these scenes even brought me to tears, they were so realistic and moving, but there was obviously a bent that revealed Roman Catholic piety in this, and I was in the I was just wondering, is there any kind of theological bent that we should be aware of in regard to this new film, Paul, Apostle of Christ, that might relieve any apprehensions or anxiety of evangelical Protestant viewers so that they can perhaps not need to worry about any kind of theological bent that would conflict with their own scriptural views?

I, at my best, in denomination or a specific angle, I really just tried this in a way that has never been done before, and you know, like I said, you know, with my father-in-law being a pastor, it helped to kind of be able to have that feedback and be able to stay kind of in a very, I think, just beautiful scriptural place, which I hope is for everyone.

I hope that everybody responds with excitement and nobody feels that it's taking an agenda or an angle, because we.

Try very hard not to do that. We have a listener all the way in Slovenia who has a question, Joe in Slovenia, who says, Brothers Chris and Andrew, since James Faulkner is cast as Paul the Apostle, will Paul have a British accent in the film?

I think that's required for all biblical films, is that everyone have a British accent. What does he look like in the film? I've read some commentaries that postulate that Paul very well could have been balding and otherwise done attractive physically, especially after all the beatings and other hardships he faced.

How is he portrayed in the film? That is an interesting question, because one of, I don't know if Jim Caviezel will be complimented or upset by this, but one of the critiques of Jim Caviezel's starring role as Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ is that he's too stunningly handsome, and the scriptures say that there was nothing physically attractive about Christ that men might be drawn to him.

So there is some validity in what our listener, but this is referring to the Apostle Paul, and I guess he's just speaking about biblical accuracy as much as possible in regard to the portrayal. It's a great question, it's a great question,.

And I will put him at ease saying that we really wanted to bring a Paul to life that is gritty, real to scripture, a man that has been stoned twice, swagged numerous times, put in prison numerous times, shipwrecked twice.

You know, this is a guy that has journeyed for 30 years, thousands of miles by foot. We really wanted to capture that. So James is gritty, he's been beaten up, and he is a good-looking guy, and it'll bring it to life in a very real way.

As far as the British accent goes, all I'm going to say is that James Faulkner, it's James Faulkner's accent. I can't describe it other than it's so cool, it's so cool and so deep and rough that it doesn't have a time or place other than it's just cool.

Yeah, almost every biblical epic I've ever seen, if not every one, you will have those in leadership, whether they be Romans in places of authority and others of that ilk, speaking with refined British accents, and then you have the peasants.

Speaking with the Cockney accents. I know, I don't know where that comes from, but clearly it's a caste system somewhere, right? It's a hierarchy. We've got some Italians, we've got some French actors, we do have some English actors, and obviously Jim, you know, one of the things that we tried to do, and I'm sure we'll hear feedback on whether we accomplished or not, is to kind of place the accent that they would have had in the time and the place that they're in.

Well, what did you do? What were the challenges involved in bringing Ancient Rome to life? Because that's where primarily the scenes in the movie are taking place, I'm assuming.

That's right. You know, we had an amazing production designer, Dave Aerosmith, out of Scotland, who really just had a fantastic eye for being able to take... We shot the movie in Malta, which is a small island a little south of Sicily, and Malta has this incredible landscape.

They've got these old ancient structures that have been there for hundreds and hundreds of years that just give it this very ancient feeling, and our production designer was able to go in and sort of on top of these places, like a Roman landscape, and he did an incredible job, and we also utilized a lot of the, you know, gladiators shot on Malta years ago, and a lot of their sets were still standing, and we were able to kind of use some of those as well in collaboration with what Dave was building to really bring Rome to life, and I'm excited.

I think it does it in a very unique, authentic way, and, you know, it's not something that we had millions and millions of dollars for in the entire Roman world, but the scenes and the sets that we were able to get are stunning.

Now, what, if anything, did you learn that surprised you about the lives of early Christians.

During Nero's reign? I think what was so... On set, a lot of the crew and a lot of the cast, and even they were just emotionally playing some of these scenes where they were looking around, and they were seeing the persecution of Christians at the time.

You know, we don't shy away from that. You know, it's very historically, scripturally accurate that, you know, Christians were very persecuted. They were being thrown into Nero's circus. They were being, you know, so emotionally moving and surprising to really look at what Paul was saying, look at what these Christians were doing, and looking at the persecution they were facing for it, and it was hard not to be emotionally moved, even for the cast and crew to look around and say, wow, he kept inspiring people, and the Christian community in Rome was still helping people, and widows and orphans, they were taking them in, all the while being killed and beaten in the street.

I mean, that is so surprising and moving. I didn't expect to be emotionally moved in that way, because I've never really.

Thought about it in such specific context. Yeah, I don't know how much our listeners know about Nero. I'm sure that there is a wide range of levels of knowledge among my listeners, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with this historical figure, he was one of the most grotesque tyrants of all history, and in fact, I think some Christians make some convincing eschatological arguments that instead of a future figure that has not yet walked the earth, or has just begun to walk the earth, that there are some who say that Nero is actually who John, the author of the book of Revelation, was speaking of in regard to the beast of Revelation.

I mean,.

This man was a monster. Monster. And you know, he was the one that, you know, there's a lot of theories that he was the one that burned half of Rome to the ground in AD 64, and really then pinned the blame on the Christians, and of course he upset all of his people by doing that, and so that's what led to just such severe persecution, and eventually Paul's arrest and trial, and ending up in prison there where he wrote 2 Timothy.

But as you say, he was an absolute monster. But what an encouraging thing for us today to look at what Paul was saying, and to look at the lives of these early Christians, and that they continue to love people, they continue to praise God, they continue to live in a Christian way, even facing that persecution.

It's very inspiring.

To me. Well, how are this film, the life of the Apostle Paul, and the experiences of the early church relevant today, in your opinion? We tend to, at least in America, you know, turn a blind.

Eye that these things are happening out in the world. There are Christians being persecuted around the world for their faith. You know, we have a very privileged, and we can get a Bible off the shelf, and we can sit, and we can read, and we can go to church on Sunday, and we can go to community groups, and there's a lot of people around the world, even today, literally today, that are on the run, being persecuted for their faith, that don't have access to a Bible, that don't have these things.

I think the relevance of being able to remind ourselves, especially in this country, of the hardships and the trials that our brothers and sisters are facing, even right now, for them, and do what we can, and just remind ourselves that these things came from real human experiences.

The Scripture, and Paul, and these amazing heroes of the faith, you know, it came out of a real—they weren't just sitting in a room somewhere coming up with great philosophy and great theology. It came out of a real beautiful—.

Now, we know that James Faulkner,.

The actor, is playing the Apostle Paul in the film. Who is Jim Caviezel portraying in this.

Motion picture? Jim plays Luke every time he got, you know, stoned, probably the one patching him up and getting him out of his way. So, Jim plays him, and he brings a great humanity to it,.

And I think people are going to love him in the film. Yeah, I mean, he is a remarkable actor, and typically everything I've seen him in, I was very, very pleased to view. Even the television series that he was recently involved in, Man of Interest, I believe it was titled.

That's right, yes, Persons of Interest. Persons of Interest.

Yes. And, well, what do you hope people are talking about in regards to this new film as they drive home from seeing Paul, Apostle of Christ?

My first hope is that I hope the audience that I love, and it's my audience too, I hope they all leave saying, finally Hollywood did something right. I hope that's the first thing. I hope they say, finally they did something right, and they treated this with such reverence and respect, and it's beautiful.

And I just hope people talk about just being inspired by Paul's life. I hope that in the car on the way home, the audience looks at each other, and they just say, wow, what a man, what a life, what a faithful, faithful man that, you know, God reaches out his hand, changes this man's life, and he goes and changes the world, and that's got to be inspiring, and I hope it's inspiring.

To everybody. We have time for one more question from a listener. RJ in White Plains, New York, asks, is this just the beginning of a series of major motion pictures that you intend to participate in, in regard to biblical characters?

It's a great question, and, you know, right now.

We just, we're going to put Paul in the next one, and if God decides this is the mode of storytelling that he wants right now, then we're absolutely open and ready to do it.

Well, any final words that you care to leave our audience with? I know that you could only be with us for a half hour today, so if you'd like to leave our listeners with some final thoughts.

Yeah, I just want to encourage, you know, people to get excited and to not be, I know that there's a little bit of a, certainly a hesitation when something comes from Hollywood to this audience of being sort of aimed at them, trying to get their money, trying to speak to them, but not really getting it at all, and I would just encourage that we just took such great strides to, you know, we are the audience, and we just tried so hard to bring this faithfully to life, that I hope people just start getting excited about it.

I hope it's something they start talking about and telling their friends about, and when they see the film, it's something that they leave feeling, wow, I'm really inspired, I want to go back, I want to bring my non-Christian friend, I want to bring my friend who's struggling, I want them to see this film.

That's what I hope for the audience. Well, I can.

Tell you in all honesty that you have alleviated a lot of my personal apprehensions, and I'm even more excited, and I'm being totally honest, I'm even more enthusiastic about seeing the film now, and I know that our listeners can find out more about this by going to paulmovie .com, paulmovie .com.

Anything else that you'd like to say in regard to contact information, how to get.

Tickets, etc.? Exactly, paulmovie .com, and the film comes out nationwide March 28th, Easter weekend,.

But go to paulmovie .com for more information, that's perfect. Well, I want to thank you so much, Andrew, and I would love to have you back on again in the future, and let's keep in touch with each other.

It was my honor and privilege to have you on. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, God bless. God bless you too. And don't go away, folks, because we have Rob Ventura joining us, coming up after the station break.

Rob is going to be discussing one of his books, A Portrait of Paul, identifying a true minister of Christ. So don't go away, God willing, we're going to be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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Well, now I am happy to bring back to the program someone who has been a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and it's been far too long since we've had him on the show. Rob Ventura, who is pastor of Grace Community Baptist Church in North Providence, Rhode Island, is on, and we're going to be discussing his book, A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a True Minister of Christ.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Rob Ventura.

Thanks, brother.

If anybody wants to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com. And it was kind of funny when I was interviewing Andrew Hyatt, the director of the new movie on Paul, Apostle of Christ, he actually unconsciously plugged the title of your book, because he said we wanted to give a portrait of Paul in the movie.

So it's kind of an interesting provenance there.

There you have it. Well, Colossians, for three and a half years, I got to, in Colossians, which is the foundation for the book, Colossians 1, 24 and following, and I got to the last sermon, and I said, now, don't we have a wonderful portrait of Paul here?

And that title just stuck with me. And then a few months later, I actually started writing the book. But there.

You have it, A Portrait of Paul. And before we go into that subject, I'd like you to tell our listeners something about Grace Community Baptist Church of North Providence, Rhode Island.

Yes, we are a Reformed Baptist Church. We have been constituted for 10 years, full time.

Oh, yeah.

Yep. So again, just praise God.

Well, if anybody wants to know more about this church that we are speaking about, go to GCBCRI .org. GCBC, standing for Grace Community Baptist Church, RI, standing for RhodeIsland .org. And we'll hopefully be announcing that later on toward the end of the program.

Interesting title, A Portrait of Paul, Identifying a True Minister of Christ. Paul is one of the most controversial individuals in the Holy Scriptures, as you probably know. The enemies of Christ and his gospel seem to despise the Apostle Paul.

Muslims believe that he basically invented the Christian faith, which in their view, obviously, is a false religion. And they believe that he departed from the teachings of Christ, and the other disciples, he being an apostle after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

And there are obviously those that say that he wasn't an apostle at all. And then, of course, you have those who are liberals who despise Paul because of the fact that he identifies specific things as being damnable sins, such as homosexuality and other things that are not very politically correct things to say into the 21st century.

But it is ironic that liberals would be haters of the Apostle Paul, or at least the figment of their imagination that they call Paul in their minds, because in reality, he most clearly wrote about grace, I think, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, obviously, than anyone in the New Testament.

Now, we know that he was not in competition or in contradiction to James or anyone else. But if you could just address what I just said.

Go to that list. So anyway, so, you know, be more Jewish and believe in Jesus, right? So, but yeah, so I mean, you know, Paul, again, I mean, on either side, like you said, I mean, there are many sides where people are offended at the Apostle Paul, certainly Catholics, right?

The true Paul of the Bible, he clearly taught justification by faith alone. And as you rightly said, not in contradiction to James at all, both addressing different aspects of our Bibles. We love Paul.

And, you know, what's so amazing about him is that we know that he just didn't, you know, spring up as a follower of Christ, right? He talks about, you were kind of alluding to it a moment ago, but one being born at a...

So, you know, here's a guy who was the eye-breathing, murderous, threat to the disciples. He's, you know, arrest, and he's bringing them back to Jerusalem and all this stuff. And here's this man just hungry for the blood of these, you know, would-be disciples of this would-be Messiah.