“The Chosen” Fiction

[Lynn]

Wow thank you for posting this! I'm going to remember this to help me explain this same concept to others that are in those two groups. God bless you, you surely blessed me.

Cheeky, as you may already know, there's a place at the top where you can click to share a particular post. I shared this post to my own email account, with plans to print it off and share it with some women that I teach. You can do the same thing or just forward the email that you send to yourself or send it to them from here.

 

[cheeky200386]

Cheeky, as you may already know, there's a place at the top where you can click to share a particular post. I shared this post to my own email account, with plans to print it off and share it with some women that I teach. You can do the same thing or just forward the email that you send to yourself or send it to them from here.

Oh that's right. I'll go ahead and do that. Thank you for the reminder!

 

[GotGrace]

For starters-- Jesus asks His disciples for advice on which parts of what He says was good, essentially checking whether He is saying the right things to the crowds. He is shown rehearsing statements, trying different wordings. He is shown working out the details of His Sermon on the Mount ahead of time, trying to polish it for maximum effect. In that process He asks His disciples what things He should say and what He should maybe leave out. He has them plan the venue for the sermon, stage-managing everything to do with it. He has the women following Him tell Him what to wear for maximum effect and He prepares for His entrance to the Sermon like a star entering a concert. And that is just part of why I have separated myself from anything to do with this series.

I’ve heard the series advertised but that’s it.

 

[Jan51]

Today I watched their Christmas episode. At the end, Mary Magdalene takes a message from elderly Mary to Luke who is writing her story. Mary refers to "mother Mary." I wondered if that was for the benefit of the Catholics?

 

[cheeky200386]

Today I watched their Christmas episode. At the end, Mary Magdalene takes a message from elderly Mary to Luke who is writing her story. Mary refers to "mother Mary." I wondered if that was for the benefit of the Catholics?

Most likely or it could be differentiation for her as Jesus' mother Mary. It does seem Mary was popular name. Either way I was disappointed the Gospel message was not shared during that episode. A missed opportunity just like every episode.

 

[Jan51]

Also in that episode, another adding to Scripture: Mary kept the cloth strips that she had used to wrap baby Jesus, and before she died she passed them to Mary Magdalene, saying it was something to remember Him by, how He had once been "one of us." The Bible records nothing about sacred relics being kept or revered, but this is a Catholic thing, and I wonder if it was included to appeal to Catholics.

 

[katt]

Whatever his childhood entailed, we know for a fact that by the age of 12 Jesus knew who and what he was and he had the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of the ages at his finger tips, how else would The Temple powers that be be amazed at the teaching of one so young?..

 

[Jan51]

Just out from Lighthouse Trails.
I deleted the link to the video but if you go to Lighthouse Trails to this article, you can click on it. It exposes how Mormon this project is. It shows that Dallas is not what he presents himself to be--the one who came up with this and the one in charge of it. He was hired by the Mormons to be one of their writers and their front man. He turned them down for several years before agreeing to it. He is very open to Mormons and says we worship the same Jesus.

Behind the Scenes: YouTube Video Examines The Chosen​

December 30, 2021 by Lighthouse Trails Editors

This week, a Lighthouse Trails reader contacted us and sent us a link to a YouTube video that discusses Dallas Jenkins’ film series, The Chosen. While we realize that many Christians are watching the series and find it valuable and meaningful, we encourage believers to use discernment and biblical truth in all matters.
Lighthouse Trails will be presenting further information on this issue in 2022.

lighthousetrailsresearch.com

 

[cheeky200386]

Just out from Lighthouse Trails.
I deleted the link to the video but if you go to Lighthouse Trails to this article, you can click on it. It exposes how Mormon this project is. It shows that Dallas is not what he presents himself to be--the one who came up with this and the one in charge of it. He was hired by the Mormons to be one of their writers and their front man. He turned them down for several years before agreeing to it. He is very open to Mormons and says we worship the same Jesus.

Behind the Scenes: YouTube Video Examines The Chosen​

December 30, 2021 by Lighthouse Trails Editors

This week, a Lighthouse Trails reader contacted us and sent us a link to a YouTube video that discusses Dallas Jenkins’ film series, The Chosen. While we realize that many Christians are watching the series and find it valuable and meaningful, we encourage believers to use discernment and biblical truth in all matters.
Lighthouse Trails will be presenting further information on this issue in 2022.

lighthousetrailsresearch.com

I'm angry how easily manipulated I was by my feelings in supporting this show. I'm also angry I shared this show with my family. The Holy Spirit has been convicted me more and more and this video you shared was helpful. I'm sharing it with my mom and another friend. Shame on Dallas!

 

[Jan51]

I'm angry how easily manipulated I was by my feelings in supporting this show. I'm also angry I shared this show with my family. The Holy Spirit has been convicted me more and more and this video you shared was helpful. I'm sharing it with my mom and another friend. Shame on Dallas!

My feelings exactly!!

 

[Lynn]

I’ve heard the series advertised but that’s it.

Same here. I'm very glad that I didn't waste any time with it. If I had, I would be angry right now, not at them, but angry with myself that my discernment radar was so weak. I think part of the show's appeal is due to the fact that nowadays, people want to be 'entertained.' Most of us grew up watching TV, and it's fun to sit back and watch a show now and then. The Christian theme is what roped people in to watching it, and it was going to be entertaining. There's a whole city in the Midwest designed to provide lots of entertainment for the Christians, and they show up in droves.

 

[katt]

My son highly recommended it, but I always back off when it comes to anything portraying the life of Jesus, the only part of this I've ever seen is a preview of Jesus speaking with Nicodemus, other than that, I can't tell anyone anything about it, if it is Mormon funded then the Jesus portrayed in the series is not my Jesus anyway, therefore I'm glad I steared away from it..

 

[cheeky200386]

Same here. I'm very glad that I didn't waste any time with it. If I had, I would be angry right now, not at them, but angry with myself that my discernment radar was so weak. I think part of the show's appeal is due to the fact that nowadays, people want to be 'entertained.' Most of us grew up watching TV, and it's fun to sit back and watch a show now and then. The Christian theme is what roped people in to watching it, and it was going to be entertaining. There's a whole city in the Midwest designed to provide lots of entertainment for the Christians, and they show up in droves.

I'm glad God has helped me grow in discernment over the years. I was definitely taken for a fool by this and so many false teachings in the first few years of my salvation. Charismatics was a big one for a good 2 years. I just can't believe Dallas believes Mormons believe in the same Jesus!

 

[Wings Like Eagles]

Absolutely, brother. After all, is not love the first fruit and the highest end? Are not love for God above all else and love for one's fellow man above one's own self the greatest commandments and, thus, the greatest goals? So, you are quite correct that the two positions I discussed in my own post --the glory of God and the good of humankind-- are indeed not opposite ends of a spectrum but, rather, two parts of an intricate whole.

The problem arises when we make the chief end of life the happiness of man rather than the glory of God. That puts our focus on us, on the created instead of on the Creator and leads to a view of God as being mainly an enabler of our wants and dreams, a supplier of whatever provisions we decide we need in order to be happy and fulfilled. And if He does not produce what it is we think we need, then we become angry or resentful and disillusioned with Him. We pull away, or even turn away completely, deciding that He does not really exist, or if He does then He doesn't care.

Life becomes a lot easier when we realize who He is … and what we are. He does not exist for us; we exist for Him. Now, His purpose in all of Creation is --as is clear from studying scripture-- our good ... not just temporally but eternally. He truly loves us … not just as a species, but individually. And He desires to have an intimate, personal relationship with each single one of us. Therefore it is not just by illustration that He gives us marriage as an example of love and relationship.

Let me ask: what relationship, what marriage, lasts if the focus of the two individuals is on self? If the husband's goal is for the wife to serve him and meet his needs, how long will that marriage last? Or if the wife's chief goal is to have the husband provide for her needs, how long will that relationship last? And how happy will it be? The truly happy marriages are where each person exists to serve the other before self. And the truly happy communities are where its members seek to help one another rather than self. Jesus taught us to seek to serve, and not seek to be served. It is selfless love that is at the very core of God's being, and displayed in all He has done for us. And it is through that love that God is glorified.

The symbiosis of this love relationship is very hard to describe because God is self-existent; He does not NEED us (although some preachers and theologians have wrongly posited that He created us because He needed something to love, something to complete Himself: a silly idea to consider a perfect Being as somehow imperfect and needing completion.) But we most certainly need Him. Yes, it is possible to live this life without Him and, for some fortunate few, to live very well in the physical realm. But once this brief life is over, they then --like every person-- have to face the God whom they rejected. Still, some say, they lived very well on this earth. No. If you read the stories of those fortunate ones, they were not happy people. Fame and fortune did not bring them happiness, despite their wealth or power.

So what does this have to do with the Gospel and with our lives?

First of all, it has everything to do with the Gospel. When we tell people that God loves them and simply wants to help them live happy lives we are not proclaiming the Gospel. The "good news" begins with the foundation that human beings are flawed and sinful creatures who deserve Hell because they have offended, by their very natures, the perfection of a holy and righteous God who created them and everything else. They are so lost that there was no hope for them, for no person could ever live perfectly enough to pay the price for their own sin and thereby become acceptable to God. The good part of the news is that God so loved us—despite the reality that we were in ourselves unlovable and, indeed, His enemies—that He Himself took care of the sin that separated us from Him, so that if we wanted it we might be lifted out of the sphere of anti-God darkness and placed into His Kingdom of Light. This was no light thing but cost God more than we can ever imagine ... that cost involving the One who knew no sin to be made sin for us so that we might be made the righteousness of God. The entire focus of this salvation is God, in Jesus Christ. When we tell people that the gospel is God simply wanting to give people better lives and eternal happiness in Heaven we are placing the focus on the well-being of the people, not pointing them to the incredible grace and mercy of God. This robs God of the glory that is due Him and elevates the fallen individuals of lost humanity to places of status worthy of what they are given. It makes God into a spiritual bellhop or genie who will grant our wishes, and Christianity into a cosmic vending machine where if you put in the correct payment (prayer, or tithes, or good deeds, or faithful acts) you will receive what it is you want. It's entire focus is on us, on our wants, our plans, our happiness, our lives. God is just a means to the end.

And it has everything to do with our lives, because when we hold to our selves as being the reason for God offering salvation; when we point to our well-being as being the basis for our claim on the blessings of God; when we continue to view ourselves as being the center of our existence; then we have reduced God simply to a means to an end. And if and when He does not deliver as we believe He should, then we become questioning, demanding of answers, bitter in our attitudes, disbelieving in His goodness and His Word. And so do those to whom we give a gospel that has them at its center. We make ourselves—and them—judges of the Creator of the universe. Yes we do. We elevate man to a position of judging God. And we set people up for terrible disillusionment. In fact we set people up for failure and a falling away from faith in God.

It may seem that I am overstating the case. But I do not think that I am. We are called to proclaim the gospel and to make disciples, that is to say followers of Christ. To make a disciple, we need to reveal the true Christ to them, teaching them the nature of God, encouraging them into obedience, and helping them to develop that intimate, one-on-one relationship with God that He desires. But I do not believe you can truly entice a person into the Kingdom with the idea that God exists to meet their needs and desperately wants to do so if they would only give Him the chance, and then afterward try to teach them that actually they need to bow before Him, obey His will rather than their own because they are now His, bought with a price and no longer have any right over their own life. That is bait and switch. And it never works. At least not for long. You wind up with disillusioned people who, it will turn out, were never truly converted because their "acceptance" of God and salvation was rooted in what God could do for them rather than in what they owe God. There was no real repentance, no surrender, no humble gratitude for God's inexpressibly precious and undeserved gift.

So, yes, like Jesus we must love the lost and have compassion on them, deeply desiring to see them receive the same precious gift of grace that we received. But that desire must flow from our realization that just as we did not deserve salvation, neither do they; but yet God made a way. And that love we have must want FIRST to see God glorified. Therefore, when we love those around us as Jesus loved them, we will desperately desire to ensure that we draw a true picture of God and man for them and thereby enable them to appreciate the magnitude of the gift of salvation that God has made available to all who desire to receive it. Our appeal should not be to their self-worth but to God's amazing grace. Their self-worth (like ours) must grow out of God's valuing of us … as demonstrated in His efforts on our behalf, His provision for us, and His view of us. Such a focus will draw us deeper into a real appreciation of God, resulting in a real and ever more precious relationship with Him. Self-worth that grows out of our own view of our self necessarily results in our focus being on the satisfaction of our wants and needs and the achieving of our goals. The former elevates God; the latter elevates ourselves. Only the former will result in true peace in this life and the assurance of the Holy Spirit that we are sealed for eternity.

In my calling I am constantly meeting people in church who have no assurance of salvation and people who were once in church who feel God just doesn't care (or, in some cases, doesn't exist.) The focus of the first group is always on their efforts, rather than on Christ's finished work. And their belief is that God has not answered their various prayers because He has rejected them because somehow they have failed Him. Their horizon is their own earthly existence and they have no real personal relationship with God. They talk about it but they do not experience it. And that is because the "gospel" they were given was flawed from the beginning. Because the focus was on them and what God would do for them, they have no understanding of their God-ordained position in Christ or upon what that is based. They are focused on their own performance and failures. The latter group say they gave Christianity a try but it just doesn't "work". The gospel they had been given was also flawed from the beginning. They were taught their good was the ultimate reason for salvation and that God—existing to do good for those who believe—would give them all that they needed to be healthy and happy: they just had to ask. And when that did not happen, they concluded that God (at least the God of Christianity) was a fiction.

We need to truly understand that this is of crucial importance to the building of the Kingdom of God. When the focus is placed on God and His glory rather than on us and our well-being, then those with whom we share the words of life have the proper foundation to truly grasp the issues of sin and salvation and make an informed decision that will lead to a proper perspective that will inevitably result in a healthy, growing, vibrant life in Christ.

Anyway, I have spun this out a lot longer than I intended. It is a huge topic and I wish I had done it better justice in this post. I pray the Holy Spirit takes what is written and uses it in some way to help you by giving you some ideas to consider as you debate this issue in your mind.

Agree with your post, Adrian. Perhaps this may be an unpopular point here--I don't know--but, I favour formal creeds and confessions (such as the Nicene Creed, the Apostle's Creed and the Westminster Confession) for the reason that many are told, "Just read the Bible." A new Christian can get confused and on the wrong track when he/she doesn't understand what the Scripture teaches in summary. While the Bible is ALL truth, it is often difficult to extract the actual WHAT we should summarize and believe. For example, the Westminster Confession states, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever..." As a new Christian, and having grown up in a man-centered culture, I guarantee that would have been a startling concept and would have provoked many questions for my Bible teachers. Yet, the glorification of God--NOT man--is what is constantly stressed throughout Scripture.

 

[Lynn]

I was definitely taken for a fool by this and so many false teachings in the first few years of my salvation

Oh, Cheeky, I wouldn't say you were a fool to have believed it was going to be a good Christian series. Also, you were predicting this opinion based on who was head of the project, Dallas Jenkins. If you've read the Left Behind book series, then you know that his dad did not portray a biblically accurate story line in parts of the books. When we look for entertainment in any form to 'help' us understand God's Word more clearly, (I've done this, not saying you have), we've taken the first step towards apostasy, and the ones who write, direct, produce or star in these productions usually show their real colors, sooner or later.

 

[Wings Like Eagles]

Today I watched their Christmas episode. At the end, Mary Magdalene takes a message from elderly Mary to Luke who is writing her story. Mary refers to "mother Mary." I wondered if that was for the benefit of the Catholics?

I only watched the first season and I noticed a fair bit of RCC influence. Probably because Dallas Jenkins had an RCC priest on his advisory team. The other thing I noticed was the influence of the rabbi who was on his advisory team. It would have been better if Jenkins had chosen a messianic Jewish pastor as an advisor. Rabbinic Judaism does not adhere to the ancient teaching (before the time of Christ) that the Messiah would be divine.

 

[Amethyst]

That is the reason I have said quite a lot on here that I cant watch any of these bible movies. Theres always something that is not in scripture. Growing up as a child I saw Jesus of Nazareth (1977) many times and thought things happened in the bible that the movie only added and that Jesus was a very ethereal type of being, and we dont know what Jesus was really like other than godly. And then when I was an adult I found out that the guy who played Jesus was actually an ardent atheist. That was very disappointing for me to find out.
So I gave up and dont even give any of them a chance.
I need the bible to speak to me not actors who are are guessing what "might have" been and the majority of whom dont even have the Holy Spirit to perceive spiritual truths.

 

[Wings Like Eagles]

That is the reason I have said quite a lot on here that I cant watch any of these bible movies. Theres always something that is not in scripture. Growing up as a child I saw Jesus of Nazareth (1977) many times and thought things happened in the bible that the movie only added and that Jesus was a very ethereal type of being, and we dont know what Jesus was really like other than godly. And then when I was an adult I found out that the guy who played Jesus was actually an ardent atheist. That was very disappointing for me to find out.
So I gave up and dont even give any of them a chance.
I need the bible to speak to me not actors who are are guessing what "might have" been and the majority of whom dont even have the Holy Spirit to perceive spiritual truths.

Yes. Jesus told Peter and His disciples, "Feed my sheep." and that, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." I expect that Jesus would take a dim view of distorting the Scriptures, because He also said, in John 10:35: "...The Scriptures cannot be broken." For the sake of "story-telling" they often are.

 

[cheeky200386]

That is the reason I have said quite a lot on here that I cant watch any of these bible movies. Theres always something that is not in scripture. Growing up as a child I saw Jesus of Nazareth (1977) many times and thought things happened in the bible that the movie only added and that Jesus was a very ethereal type of being, and we dont know what Jesus was really like other than godly. And then when I was an adult I found out that the guy who played Jesus was actually an ardent atheist. That was very disappointing for me to find out.
So I gave up and dont even give any of them a chance.
I need the bible to speak to me not actors who are are guessing what "might have" been and the majority of whom dont even have the Holy Spirit to perceive spiritual truths.

Wow I didn't know that about that actor! I loved that 6 hour long movie. I do agree it is disappointing how it added to the Bible.