The Jesus Super Bowl Commercials Are CONCERNING!

The He Gets Us Campaign and Why It Matters

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to Fight For Truth, the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter. In today's video, we're going to be taking another look at the He Gets Us campaign.

We've already made a video on this topic, and feel free to check that out. But in light of recent events, I thought it would be appropriate to make another video. First off, He Gets Us is a $100 million ad campaign for Jesus that put a couple of their commercials in the Super Bowl.

Indeed, these commercials made such an impression that there are articles about them from CNN, People, and the New York Post, and of course many more. Also, I noticed that many Christians have been portraying these ads in a relatively positive light.

This video is a clarification as to why we on this channel do not. That is to say, this is about why we don't support the He Gets Us campaign, despite the fact that many Christians think it's a good idea.

So before we begin, let me offer you one brief disclaimer. I am not saying that He Gets Us is totally and completely false in everything they've ever said. Nor am I saying that no one will be saved or helped through some of the work they do.

But with that said, it is still my conviction that this campaign is not accurately representing the person and teaching of Jesus Christ, and as such, they should not be seen in an overall positive light.

So that's our claim. But a claim must be backed up by evidence. So here it goes. To begin, many conservative Christians believe that these He Gets Us ads are presenting a false Christ, and I would tend to agree with that assessment.

At least, I would agree with it in the sense that they are definitely distorting things about Jesus and withholding things about Him in some notable ways. But in response to this, many Christians who are in favor of the movement have noted that He Gets Us says something very specific about Jesus in their About Us section of their website.

They say this, Because of this statement specifically, many other Christians have said that this organization cannot be accused of preaching a false Jesus or false teaching because they have a seemingly orthodox view of Jesus being the Son of God.

What do we make of this? Are conservative Christians going overboard? And does this About page prove that definitively? Well, in my estimation, no. Not even close. You have to remember that many false movements with false teachers still have a relatively orthodox statement of faith on their website.

Keep in mind that Lakewood Church, which is run by notorious false teacher Joel Osteen, has such a statement as well. Their website says that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, that He resurrected.

But of course, Joel Osteen is almost universally recognized by discerning Christians as a false teacher. So is his teaching no longer false just because they have an orthodox statement of faith? Of course not.

More than this, if you go on the official website of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormon Church, they affirm virtually the same basic ideas. They, too, believe that Jesus was the Son of God.

They, too, believe that Jesus died for us on the cross. And they, too, believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Yet Mormonism is not orthodox biblical Christianity at all, and they absolutely have a false Christ.

So when I see people suggesting that having an accurate, basic idea of who Jesus is on some About page of your website somehow makes your organization biblical, I'd have to disagree. But now that we've established that, we need to get into practical examples of He Gets Us offering information about the person and teaching of Jesus that is simply inaccurate or misleading.

And there are, unfortunately, many examples. First, let's take a look at a video they made entitled Outrage. Watch this clip.

There was this controversial figure. Everywhere he went, people challenged him. They questioned his ideology, trolled him, called him ugly names. But he never took the bait, never raised his voice, refused to retaliate, because he believed he could change the world by turning the other cheek.

So He Gets Us confidently says that Jesus, quote, never raised his voice. And at the end of the clip, they put up a graphic saying, quote, Jesus had to control his outrage, too. This is at best a misrepresentation of Jesus, but at worst, it's an outright falsehood.

To begin, Jesus didn't just control His outrage. There were many times in the Gospels that He actively participated in outrage publicly. One such example would be when Jesus cleanses the temple, which, by the way, He did two times.

John 2 .15 says, quote, And making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the oxen. And He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And He told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away.

Do not make My Father's house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written, quote, Zeal for your house will consume me. So was Jesus full of righteous outrage? Absolutely. And considering this, it's hard to imagine that Jesus never would have raised His voice during this encounter or any other.

And besides that, Jesus was willing to use a whip of cords to forcibly drive other people out of the temple. Most people would say that that is far more extreme than merely raising your voice. In any case, He gets us paints Jesus out to be a soft-spoken man who never burst into outrage or righteous indignation or anything like that.

But the Bible shows us this is absolutely untrue. Let's give another example. They also have a video entitled, Be Childlike. This is one of the ads that appear in the Super Bowl. It has various cute images of children generally being wholesome.

And then at the end, it says, quote, Jesus didn't want us to act like adults, end quote. And this is seemingly based in Matthew 18, 3, where Jesus says, quote, Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven, end quote.

But this does not mean that Jesus didn't want us to act like adults. In context, Jesus was previously asked a question from His disciples. They asked, who would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And later, Jesus says this, quote, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, end quote. So Jesus isn't saying don't act like an adult. He never said that. No, He's saying that despite being an adult, His followers should exhibit childlike humility.

More than this, there are other passages of Scripture that would contradict the vague notion that Jesus didn't want us to act like adults. Look at what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, 11, quote, When I was a child, I spoke like a child.

I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up my childish ways, end quote. So long story short, telling people that Jesus doesn't want His followers to act like adults is irresponsible and, frankly, unbiblical.

This He Gets Us video is, at best, misrepresenting the teaching of Christ. At worst, they're telling an outright lie for the sake of creating a viral video for their marketing campaign. Either way, discerning Christians should be concerned about this movement.

The Refugee Video and the Flight to Egypt

But the examples don't end here. Let's take a look at another video entitled, Refugee. Watch this.

There was a mother and a father who had a son. One day, they heard the head of their country was sending soldiers to their town because he thought they were part of an insurrection. The young family decided to flee.

They grabbed only what they could carry and ran. They were scared, hungry, and exhausted, but they were far away from the atrocities taking place in Bethlehem. That's all Mary and Joseph wanted, a safe place to call home.

So basically, this video is meant to make Jesus' situation synonymous with the situation we find today at the southern border of the United States. But of course, this video is not biblically accurate for several reasons.

First, Jesus was not a refugee in the modern sense. He was not fleeing one country controlled by one empire and moving to a completely different country that lies outside of that empire's ultimate jurisdiction.

No, Egypt was the place that Mary and Joseph fled to with Jesus. And at the time, Egypt was part of the Roman Empire, as was Bethlehem where they started. So once again, suggesting that Jesus was essentially like a modern refugee is an intentional misrepresentation to accomplish a political agenda.

But in any case, this video is inaccurate in multiple places. The ad also said at the end, quote, That's all Mary and Joseph wanted, a safe place to call home. And they say this because that makes it more similar, again, to our current political situation, where many people want to permanently move to the United States for a better life.

But this was not the case for Mary and Joseph. They were not trying to make Egypt permanently their, quote, new home. This is completely contrary to what we are told in Scripture. Matthew 2 .13 says, quote, An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you.

For Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. Notice that the angel said to remain in Egypt until further notice. So this was never meant to be a permanent home, but a temporary place of protection for Jesus.

Also, suggesting that Mary and Joseph, quote, just wanted a safe place to call home is incomplete for another important reason. Their motivation for moving to Egypt wasn't just a safe place to call home.

In fact, that wasn't even the primary reason. It was far bigger than that. They were trying to protect the life of the Savior of the entire world. They were protecting the Son of God Himself. So to say that they were just, quote, looking for a safe place to call home is not entirely true.

So again, we can see yet another misrepresentation of the life of Christ because this organization wants to read current events into the text of the Bible. But about these half-truths, let me offer you an analogy.

Suppose I was driving recklessly at 100 miles an hour in a quiet suburban neighborhood, and I was pulled over, and I got a ticket. Now suppose I told you later that I got pulled over by the police. And let's say you asked me, why did you get pulled over?

And then suppose I responded, saying, well, I got pulled over because I was driving. That would be technically true in that if I was not driving, I certainly could not have been pulled over. But that is still not the fundamental reason that I got pulled over.

The real causal factor was the speed I chose to drive. So just like this analogy, the He Gets Us campaign says things that are more often than not technically true, but they are not the fundamental or primary truths presented to us on these topics in the Bible.

And this is being done intentionally for cultural relevance. But here's another example of this. This video is entitled Dinner Party. Watch this.

Around the dinner table, they can talk and see how much they have in common.

So according to the He Gets Us campaign, Jesus was gathering people around the table so that they could, quote, see how much they have in common. But this, again, is misleading. To the best of my knowledge, there is nowhere in the ministry of Jesus that I've seen this explicitly mentioned in the text of Scripture.

The Bible does not tell us that Jesus was gathering people to, quote, show them how much they have in common. The obvious and primary reason that Jesus brought people to Himself was to call them to repentance and belief in the Gospel.

In Matthew 4, 17, Jesus begins His ministry with this very message, quote,. From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So was Jesus' goal to show us how much we have in common?

Is that the message He was inviting people to hear primarily? No. But let's keep watching the video, and you'll see an even greater problem. Watch this.

So He prepared a feast and invited all into His home, but some refused to sit at His table because they chose to only see differences. He was heartbroken because He wanted everyone to eat and be filled, not with food and wine, but with compassion.

So the video says that some people would not come to Jesus' table because, quote, They chose to only see differences. But is this biblically accurate? Do people who reject Jesus do so because they choose to see differences rather than all the amazing things that we have in common?

If so, I would love to see the biblical evidence for this, because I have never seen anything like that in Scripture. Let's look at one of the main categories of people who rejected Jesus during His lifetime.

The Pharisees. Did they reject Jesus because they chose to only see differences? No. In Matthew 23, 2, Jesus begins His seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees, saying this,. Quote,. The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat.

So do and observe what they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. End quote. You see, the fundamental reason the Pharisees rejected Jesus was because they were prideful, hypocritical, and acted unbiblically.

I am not aware of any place in Scripture where Jesus condemns the Pharisees, quote, for only seeing differences. Indeed, Jesus actually tells them what their main problem is, several times, and it sounds nothing like this video from He Gets Us.

And more than this, Jesus didn't come to earth just to show us how much we have in common. In Matthew 10, 34, Jesus says,. Quote,. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

End quote. The point I'm trying to make here is that Jesus recognized important spiritual differences between people, things that might divide people. But He Gets Us seems to suggest that seeing differences was not a part of His ministry, and that He would have discouraged that entirely.

Again, here we have a direct misinterpretation of the teaching of Christ. And there are several more examples that I could bring up, but we'd be here all day. I could bring up the fact that He Gets Us has aligned themselves with the Catholic Church.

I could also bring up the fact that a He Gets Us representative and employee was discovered supporting homosexuality in the live chat section of their website. I could also bring up that He Gets Us actively avoids topics like sin, hell, and repentance, which were fundamental to the ministry of Jesus, especially concerning unbelievers.

Why Many Discerning Christians Reject the Campaign

But rather than do that, I want to deal briefly with another complaint that some Christians might have against today's critique. You see, many people who support the He Gets Us campaign make it appear as though the people critiquing it are some small group of legalistic extreme conservative Christians.

But this is not the case. There is a massive group of discerning Christians who have publicly voiced concern about this movement. Let me name just a few of those people. Allie Beth Stuckey, Justin Peters, Pastor Tom Buck, Frank Turek's apologetics ministry, Cross Examined, a popular conservative Christian resource, GotQuestions .org.

This also includes the Treasure Christ YouTube channel, John Harris from Conversations That Matter, and many, many more. So if you found yourself watching the Super Bowl and you saw those so-called Christian commercials and you felt unsettled, don't worry, you're in very good company.

There is a huge number of discerning Christians who have valid problems with this movement. Most of all, we need to understand that He Gets Us does not fully and accurately represent the biblical Jesus, but rather they present a sanitized version of Jesus who is safe for modern audiences and appealing to the secular world.

And we hope this video has demonstrated that to you in some practical way. I pray this has been a blessing to you, and please know this video isn't meant as a sinful attack, but rather as a biblical critique.

Please, pray for this channel and for anyone discussed in the video. And if you're looking for teaching resources or trying to find a new church, check out the teaching ministries and church networks linked in the description.

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