Retelling the Greatest Story Ever Told | Dallas Jenkins | EP 509

we went to the Sea of Galilee and saw uh we while we're talking about what took place at the Sea of Galilee and investigating it there happened to be a man on a boat who was fishing with his net and he's Gathering and and there's a parable that Jesus gives uh in in the gospels about the the parable of the Nets where he says a fisherman's job is to gather the fish and they separate the the good from the rotten and they toss the rotten back in so it will be at the end of the

age right you gather the fish and the angels will separate the evil from the righteous I'm calling you to be a fisher of men he says that to to Simon Peter one of the profound moments not the ultimate one but one of them was me going I think that's what I am I'm a gatherer I gather fish into the net and I let God work out what the result of that is I'm not trying to convert you in my show although that has happened to be a a a very common occurrence or I'm not I'm

not hoping no that's one of the reasons that your show can be watched as far as I'm concerned [Music] hello everybody um I'm probably in the most unlikely stage setting today that I don't know I've ever been in although I've been in some unlikely places this is the house of Caiaphas the high priest during the time of Christ it's the setting for part of the chosen one of the most successful series and I would say probably indisputably the most successful religiously based series ever produced I'm here today to talk with the Creator producer director and

writer of that series Dallas Jenkins who's invited us down here to see the studio and to see the sets and to talk about how this most unlikely of all occurrences made its manifestation so what did we talk about well the emergence of the chosen as a spectacular success occurred on the heels of a relatively cataclysmic failure um the precursor movie so to speak at least from a career perspective of of dallis was uh failure it launched as a Hollywood production and SP downward almost immediately and we talked about the desperation the Despair and hopelessness that

accompanied that failure and then the surprising and remarkable consequences that unfolded across time and I don't want to spoil the story you have to hear it in its details to really understand what um transpired but out of the ash of that defeat let's say Rose the radical success of the chosen very unlikely Enterprise and I was extremely curious about how that happened I wanted to know how it happened personally What were what was the response to the what was Dallas's response to his failure and how did the idea of the chosen make itself present and

what did that mean practically and why did the audience respond and how was it financed and what was the marketing approach and why did that work and what does it mean for the culture more broadly speaking and what has been the effect worldwide and how are we to understand that and we did what we could to investigate all those questions and to provide some at least provisional answers to them in the 90 minutes that we were fortunate to talk today and so if you're interested in that story and it's an extremely interesting story about the

attempt to film the most interesting story ever told you might say um then join us for this podcast well let's start by talking about where we are because we're in this remarkable set part of a remarkable series and so let's talk about the set first and then the series we are in Caiaphas house I priest Caiaphas now it's in Texas not Israel we film in Texas Texans believe Jesus lived here anyway so we that's why we film in Texas this is where he would choose to live exactly and when he comes back he's coming to

Texas first um but uh we built this set this is a season five set has not been released to the world yet so you're you're introducing Caiaphas is set to the world uh chosen fans have not seen it yet but this is the room in which not only Caiaphas and Judas make a deal but ultimately where we'll see Jesus come for his quasi trial his Sanhedrin trial took place at Caiaphas his house under cover of night away from the traditional place because they were trying to do it quickly but with that uplifting light-hearted note this

is where we're filming this conversation isn't and this is part of a large number a large macro set consisting of a number of large buildings each of which have sets built inside it they're all soundproofed and yes when did you set all this up it's well season one of the of the chosen was uh crowdfunded and at such a l budget we were starting from scratch so we were finding places to film and trying to make them look bigger it was uh after season two that we realized we have to have our own place we

can't just keep chasing the kinds of places around the country that some of which don't exist we need our own home and we need to stay in one spot and so that's when we started to build some of these places on here in Texas at a on a property owned by the Salvation Army uh there's no pun intended on that that it happens to just be the place that had hundreds hilarious yeah hundreds of Acres of open land and uh and some already interesting infrastructure and so we built these sound stages so right now we're

in a Sound Stage that contains cai's house uh 50 yards away is a potential place where we would film The Garden of Gethsemane there's another building that has Simon Peter's house uh pilot pontious Pilot's house we had a a place where we've got the the room for the Last Supper so and then we've got a back lout where we've got a first century Capernaum uh Recreation so it's all over the place but within about you know half a mile of each other well let's let's uh familiarize everybody watching and listening with the with the story

of the chosen in the broadest possible sense you just pointed out that it was crowdfunded to begin with and so why don't you start at the beginning of the vision for the series and the ambition for the series and just tell the story because lots of people who are sure who are uh engaged in this podcast won't know it it was birthed from failure so for coming up on 20 years leading up to 2017 I I've been a filmmaker for that long I've made several films with varying degrees of success but all independent outside of

the studio system that's what when you hear the term indie film or independent film it means not financed by the by the studios and had varying degrees of success but I was very eager to make a film that was uh either financed or affirmed or endorsed by Hollywood and I finally got a chance to do that in uh 2016 it released in 2017 so January 20th 2017 turned out to be the lowest moment of my life or at least my career because the film that I had gotten a chance to make released in theaters around

the country with several big Hollywood Studios attached and working on it and it completely failed and that was which film it was called the resurrection of Gavin Stone and the fact that you had heard of it is part of the reason why it didn't do very well so uh what happens is on a Friday afternoon um a math equation takes place the numbers come in from the east coast and you can then decipher how a movie is going to do that day how it's going to do that weekend and most often how it's going to

do for the life of it and within a couple hours I went from being a filmmaker who had a very bright future to a filmmaker with no future because the movie bombed uh the other stories that we were hoping to tell with these companies the companies said no never mind um parent clearly we don't understand this audience this approach the kind of faith-based film making and so uh out of that um I was home alone with my wife Amanda and we were crying and praying and confused because you you hear all the time God's not

the author of failure and so when you fail you must assume that the calling that you thought you'd received to do this work must not have been a true calling you know you any time we feel called to something you it's hard to decipher sometimes whether it's a calling from God Temptation or a Temptation or just a desire a fleshly desire and sometimes it's a fleshly desire and it's okay it's not you know I I when we choose what we're going to eat for dinner tonight I don't wait for God to reveal it to me

I just have a desire for something and it's fine but I had spent you know two years of my life developing this story and seeing so many moments throughout that where doors were opening and God clearly seemed to be present and so then when it failed I thought I guess I was wrong I guess God wasn't present and or wasn't calling me to this and so in the midst of my Devastation um Amanda came to me and said I feel very strongly and clearly like God is putting it on my heart open the story the

feeding the 5000 in the gospels I don't know why I just know that that's what we're supposed to do so we open in the Bible to the feeding of the 5,000 a story I've heard many times before I've been a Believer as long as I can remember so what about that story was for us well the thing that we noticed in that story was that Jesus had been preaching for several days the disciples come to him and they say master the people are hungry there we need to send them home to get food and what

I hadn't noticed before in the story was that Jesus didn't say oh good point uh I hadn't hadn't realized that we we should get this taken care of he already knew it in fact it was his fault they were hungry they'd been he'd been talking for two days two three days and his response was oh no we can't send them home because they're so hungry they'll faint along the way so you re we realized in that moment just because you're at a place of hunger and Desperation doesn't necessarily mean that God's not in it and

in fact it may mean he is in it depending on your theology he either allowed it or he caused it but being brought to that place of hunger in desperation doesn't necessarily mean that uh that God you're been abandoned right it may be or even necessarily that you were wrong why did God why did God tell the Israelites to camp out at the edge of the Red Sea in advance of the Israelites being pursued by the Egyptians he said go to the edge of the Red Sea and camp out he put them in this place

where they had no place to go when the Egyptians came and and and pursued them they had no Escape and he put them there on purpose and he says three times in a span of several verses so that I will get glory in the beginning was the word Christ is a master at using short mysterious stories they change the listener who takes them seriously my experience with the biblical text is that they're inexhaustible sources of wisdom if I find something in them that is an obstacle it's because there's something in me that has yet to

be transformed I just don't get get it the person that you do not think could ever be virtuous oh let me show you this is the person who is fulfilling the law and the prophets but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you as well I don't believe in that promise I'll just be honest on this point that has not been part of my experience this Parable I've been trying to understand forever while we were talking and while we were sitting there then it hit me I saw

it made me one ideology that has supplanted Christianity that has done good for Humanity this Jew is very frightened of a post-christian society he was the god man the model the example of what we ought to become and what we can become it's okay it's safe for you in all of your doubts and apprehensions to open up and to let these stories in he is the temple he is the Torah he is the Covenant he is prophecy fulfilled if you're doing this and it isn't also the love of wisdom it's also an attempt at wisdom

without love in both ways you're going radically wrong Power of Love it sounds so cliche when you say 60s I don't want to be in a homework cart I tell you we've got our work cut out for us gentlemen this is one peculiar time and one peculiar text and I sure hope we're up to the task it's a tricky problem e because you don't want to be opaque to failure I mean it's it's it's a terrible problem you don't want to be opaque to failure and being persistent and being opaque to failure are often hard

to distinguish how do you know if you're assiduously P pursuing your goals in the face of trouble and opposition or stubbornly clinging to your tyrannical failures right very hard thing to that's part of that problem of separating the wheat from the chaff or discriminating the spirits and so you had spent a lot of time in your career trying to get in a position where you were attractive to the mainstream Hollywood Studios that had happened yes it seemed as far as you were concerned that you were pursuing the right path then you get devastating news and

in relatively short order that at least part of what you had envisioned just wasn't going to happen and you must have been wondering at that point too and I'm I'm curious about what you think about that now do you have some sense of why the film I mean there's lots of reasons films don't SU Ed many like any product first of all the probability that any product is going to succeed even if it's a good product is low everything has to be timed exactly right including things you can't control but so what did you conclude

at that moment along with your wife that was the nature let's say of the failure and then let's go back to the to the to the story of the feeding yeah so that didn't happen until that night so in the midst of the failure you're wrestling with what caused it and for me as an analyzer I I analyze well I solve problems I I wrestle with causes and effects it's one of the things that I'm fairly good at and then I'm realizing maybe I'm not good at it maybe I'm not maybe I'm not that's so

there's the calling for sure there's the calling there's the the spiritual direction that I believe God had given me now I'm questioning whether that's real real yeah well that's the thing and there's the surface there's the there's the the Practical what mistakes did I make to yeah well that's an unpacking of levels right I mean there's actually some psychological rules for approaching a situation like that because any failure brings up the Spectre of cataclysmic characterological inadequacy right did I fa pretend that I know what you just said well did I fail because I made a

strategic error or did I fail because there's something fundamentally wrong with me at a very deep level okay so one of the things that happens to people who are depressed and it's actually one of the one of the Hallmarks of depression is that every time someone who has a proclivity towards depression faces an obstacle or fails they immediately move from contemplation of a mere strategic error to analysis of a fundamental character logical flaw now and so there's actually some rules for this is the rule is that if something happens to you that's negative you should

presume the least amount of error possible and then work downward it's sort of like the presumption of innocence in the legal realm yes right you don't want to take yourself apart any more than is necessary it's also a good rule of thumb in arguments let's say or disputes with your partner right you want to start with your wife or your husband you want to start with the assumption that the problem between you is a strategic and practical problem rather than an indication that the whole marriage should be thrown up in the air and you should

leave right okay so now you see this major failure and you're trying to figure out well is this a strategic error did I do something is there something wrong fundamentally with my relationship with reality so in the afternoon Friday afternoon it was the ladder I'm so consumed by that that I I don't have room in my head or heart to start to wrestle yet with the Practical was it a mistake a strategic air right now it's a have the last 20 years of my life led to this right I need to learn how to drive

a bus so that I can provide for family right so that's what I'm worried so everything is destabilized maybe as far as you're concerned so God brings us to the the ladder he's saying he's helping us wrestle with our calling and and he's his his first message to us or at least what we are wrestling with is the the macro level the foundation to your point uh was I wrong all along so in that moment reading that story of the feeding the 5000 was very comforting because say okay this doesn't necessarily mean that God's abandoned

me to your point or that I'm that I'm fundamentally flawed in my calling now I don't know what's next I don't know but you don't have to draw that conclusion that so in the story of Job I mean the decisions job makes a series of decisions in the aftermath of his cataclysmic failure let's say which is multi-dimensional right because he loses his Enterprise he loses many of the members of his family he ends up ill and disfigured his friends are basically accusing him of moral impropriety of the sort that would lead to that outcome and

job's decision at that point is not to lose faith in the essential goodness of his being even though he recognizes that he's flawed like every other person or to lose faith in the benevolence of the Divine let's say and so he goes to the bottom his wife says to him there's nothing left for you except to Curse God and die right that's her conclusion given the Dismal circumstances he's but he doesn't do that he maintains faith in himself and he maintains faith in the benevolence of existence even though he can't necessarily perceive it at that

moment yeah so so I'll get to that because what I did was in the moment I'm I'm struggling with faith in myself for sure struggling with faith and my ability to hear God's voice and know what I'm supposed to be doing and God brings in this reminder of a story that makes me feel a little bit better a foundation right and this came to your wife's mind this story that's why you investigated it yes that's her cont she she was not job's wife she did not say kcot she said that's interesting so so one of

the things that does happen to people in circumstances like this and it it's worth noting psychologically is that if you are wrestling with a very complex problem you can watch memories and images flp through your mind and you can think of it your imagination what your imagination is trying to do is to sketch out the nature of the new landscape and it might offer a hint in the form of a reference to something read or something encountered that you can then pursue right so it' be like your wife's imagination had gripped onto the notion that

there was some possibility that there was a nugget of information embedded in that particular story that would be useful for this situation right we'd call that an intuition but it's a revelation too that's another way of thinking about it okay so you took that seriously and you read the story right so in the midst of it this is why you're who you are uh I wouldn't have put it this way but we were also unknowingly wrestling whether with it whether it's an Intuition or a revelation and here's why yeah because our conclusion from the story

that we were reading was okay right now we are at that point of hunger and Desperation the next step is the miracle Jesus brought them to that place so that they were hungry and desperate so that the only only solution to their problem was a miracle the thing that only he could do now yeah you know you you mentioned the Exodus Story one of the what would you say God if I remember correctly God justifies his actions in hardening the heart of the Pharaoh yes because that increases the Majesty of his eventual Victory so that

I will get Glory three times in one chapter yeah right right right so that's a very comp ated thing to unpack and I don't remember if we went into that in the Exodus seminar in in the daily wire series but I suspect so and so what you're doing is you're you're laying out the The Narrative of those events to point out the what would you say it's the magnification of what happens that's beneficial by the precursor of the tragic and it is definitely the case that there's this dynamic in our life that what's good would

not be as good as it is unless it could be contrasted with suffering and misery right you need that expanse of experience for things to have their Majesty that's a good way of thinking about it to him so in the moment a bad thing has happened but it's the precursor to something great so what is it we know that Jes Jesus is about to do something extraordinary in the feeding of the 5000 so what is God about to do with us and we're thinking so that's at least a possibility then yeah maybe thinking tonight the

numbers might so dramatically shift in a miraculous way that God will get glory and that our movie will actually surprise and and counteract the math equation that has taken place and so we're thinking don't be surprised if tonight the numbers magically supernaturally miraculously turn around the math equation that Hollywood is used to is upended and what was about to happen to us is what happened to the people who were hungry and desperate uh 2,000 years ago so that night the numbers got worse so now we're going okay so much for that hypothesis yes so we're

back to square one and now I go to the former when you had the two options of is it a practical mistake is it an error that was made or is a foundational problem okay well uh I'm going to go now to the my brain is now back to how how I normally am and I'm gonna do what I normally do I'm gonna get online I'm gonna get I'm gonna pull up Microsoft Word and I'm going to do a 15-page memo analyzing all the errors and strategies that were mistaken to lead me to this point

so I'm writing it out this is what I did wrong to my credit I'm taking blame I'm not putting blame on anyone else I was wrong I missed it I'm on page 14 of my 15-page memo analyzing everything that went wrong ping pops something pops up on my computer it's four o'clock in the morning message pops up on Facebook Messenger from someone I've never met we're friends on Facebook we've talk maybe once a year doesn't say hi doesn't say hello just ping remember your job is not to feed the 5,000 it's only to provide the

Loaves and fish so I pause for a moment I wonder if genuinely with my computer recording what Amanda and I talked about today how does this person know to speak to this thing we've been wrestling with all day yeah that's a weird coincidence so my response the least yeah so I didn't say hey Alex nice to hear from you I just go what are you doing up at 4 in the morning cuz I'm trying to analyze he says oh I'm I'm I'm in Romania I'm on the other side of the world right now I just

heard about your movie and I wanted to say that and I said before I respond can I ask you why you told me that he said oh that wasn't me God told me to tell you that okay so tell me the message again remember yeah your job is not to feed the 5,000 it's only to provide the Loaves and fish okay so what did you make of that so I first had to my life changed in that moment because I my my question about whether or not God was present was clearly answered he's telling that

I found out later that Alex said he was walking home from the grocery store and he looked up my moveie saw it was a failure he had enjoyed it he had seen it himself he was disappointed and and he felt just as clearly as my wife had felt God putting her into the story The Feeding 5000 he felt God putting it on his heart tell Dallas it's not his job to feed the 5,000 it's only to provide the Loaves and fish and he said no I I barely know Dallas that's a very condescending thing to

say to somebody who's clean well and a strange thing it's like it's meaning is opaque and it's a it's a very particular reference right right right and he contextless yes so he wrestles with that and doesn't want to do that and thinks ultimately well God won't let me off the mat he keeps pressing this into me so okay I'm going to share this with Dallas it's 4 in the morning back there anyway so he won't see it for a while anyway and of course he gets this immediate response and informs me that God had been

pressing it on his heart to tell me that so two things happened number one it all it all hit me in that moment like I understood what he meant and and that's what you're asking so in the story The Feeding of the 5000 Jesus could have assuming you believe the story and you believe all the stories of the Miracles that he performed he could have manifested Loaves and fish from nothing and he could have fed 5,000 people and and the Loaves and fish could have just emerged in their laps but he says I need food

what someone bring me some food bring me something and a boy brings Five Loaves and two fish and Jesus Takes those Five Loaves and two fish and He blesses them and then multiplies them to the point where we can feed 5,000 people and so why does he do that why does he involve us or in the case of this story The Boy in the process when he doesn't have to so the the principle of your job is to not be responsible to feed 5,000 to not think of the results I'm a results guy I'm a

Problem Solver I'm a the numbers didn't match we didn't we didn't feed 5,000 we we it failed and this gentleman is telling me no no that's not your job to worry about you didn't fail you so you're looking at the wrong marker of success in relationship to your Endeavor so as long as you did the right thing all the way along which is something you have to contend with in relationship to your conscience the outcome is not the measure correct so in that moment when I'm literally analyzing what I did wrong right coming off of

a day of wrestling with the story of the feeding the 5000 this gentleman randomly out of the blue tells me it's not that it's not that you failed per se it's not that you m you now we could argue about did I make the best Five Loaves and two fish was the recipe a good recipe did are you tired of feeling sluggish run down or just not your best self take control of your health and vitality today with balance of nature with balance of nature there's never been a more convenient dietary supplement to ensure you

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use promo code Jordan for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer plus get a free bottle of fi and spice that's balance of nature.com promo code Jordan for 35% off your first preferred order plus a free bottle of fiber and spice so so back to job so you see this is exactly the issue that's dealt with in job because part of the subtext of job is the problem with assessment of a situation what what would you say using anything but proper intent as the measure right now and the reason for that it's fairly

straightforward is sometimes things that are radically successful fail in the measurable moment I I'll give you an example so for example n's book uh Beyond Good and Evil I think it sold 200 copies in his lifetime right yeah so it was a cataclysmic failure but it was maybe the most impactful book of philosophy in the last 150 years he didn't know right and then then there's the contrary situation where you succeed Beyond Your Wildest Dreams in the moment but it's Hollow and you've sold your soul for it and everything that comes flooding towards you which

looks like success is actually the means for your destruction right so so and and that job does wrestle with this he says that he says in effect to himself and to his friends and to God that he's in no position to judge what's happened to him in part because he doesn't have the omniscient view necessary to take thing all things into account right and so he's unwilling to condemn himself or God for that matter because of this momentary failure cataclysmic though it is because everything has not yet been revealed now that that's complicated because it

still leaves us in an uncomfortable situation which is well if you can't use the result as the marker for success or failure what do you use as a marker so now you went over your conduct you got this message and you presumed I'm I'm I'm leaping ahead a bit you my suspicion is is that you presumed that perhaps this hadn't been a failure like how did you make the Judgment well how did that change your judgment of the situation it took a it took a year and I think it's still taking place today as you

and I talk about this show that spoiler alert has become one of the most successful shows in the world and I have gotten some of those things that I used to pursue um but it's different now so we'll we'll we'll put a pin in that we'll come back to this moment I don't know yet I'm going okay so he's so you you set the stage so this could be successful and so you did your part that's the message the message is you did your part yeah but the the did I do a good job was

the Fish and Loaves the best I they they could I don't know yet I don't know what the reason is for this because if the if the feeding if the result the miracle isn't a good result for the resurrection of Gavin Stone the name of the movie yeah if it's if it's if it's still failing if it's never going to succeed then what is the I I gave my Loaves and fish he's just saying to me in that moment don't worry about it be okay because I'm wrestling with what's so what's the next step and

I don't know and in God's economy of time is different from Human Humanity's economy of time so I'm wanting the answer now yeah yeah he's saying you won't you don't have that answer now just know just stop thinking about the result think more about the Five Loaves and two fish and so for me as someone who over 40 years of my life had always measured Myself by the results was seeking a particular result affirmation was my drug of choice legitim intimacy was my drug of choice it was my voice my vice narcissism was my struggle

in this moment um I think that the feeding of the 5000 refers to many things it refers to financial success it refers to to Hollywood legitimacy it refers to what people think of me the the audience the audience rejected what I was bringing to them right so did Hollywood so did uh anything that I'm seeking so okay well that's nice to hear but but in that moment I realized from now on and I became a different person that night that morning 4:00 in the morning okay God as long as I am in your will as

long as I am providing Five Loaves and two fish that you deem acceptable the transaction's over no longer will I seek the the feeding I'm not going to be the boy who provides the Five Loaves and two fish sees it multiplied goes home to his parents and says mom and dad I fed 5,000 people today that would be ludicrous so I'm I'm not only not responsible for the failure I mean in a manner of speaking of course I'm sure of course I made some mistakes of course the movie wasn't good enough to achieve its correct

that's exactly what job says yes so but uh now my focus is going to be on just the transaction for lack of a better term between myself and God okay okay so so one of the things that I've been talking to audiences about as I travel around the world and lecture is a a theory of what would you say the relationship between truth and Adventure sure so here's a way of conceptualizing faith in the truth whatever happens if you tell the truth is the best thing that could possibly happen no matter how it looks to

you right so this is because see you got to make a decision both ways you could say I'm going to judge the validity and utility of my utterance based on the result that I can see sure now the problem with that is you can't see everything right right and that that brings up those other problems we described it could be a cataclysmic failure in the moment but a long-term success or a cataclysmic success in the moment of long-term failure if you use the results as the measure those errors exist okay the alternative is to flip

that and say no because of my ignorance in relationship to the adjudication of outcome I'm going to concentrate on the process and I'm going to make the Assumption and this and that becomes a standard of faith that whatever happens if I say what I believe to be true is the best outcome regardless of how it looks to me right and so that's analogous to the to the what would you say conclusion you drew about even a CO you might say a cognitive error that made you susceptible to taking yourself a part in the aftermath of

the collapse of your movie yes right now you still have a problem which would be you know are you just rationalizing you know you failed by any reasonable standard of failure now you're saying well I did everything right and I'm not going to take the failure to Heart well I'm not saying I did everything right well okay fair enough you didn't say that I'm saying that's not how I'm going to measure ultimate success here so what's interesting is I would conclude and I think I concluded in that moment and certainly conclude it now in fact

hundreds of millions of people around on the world believe the conclusion I'm about to tell you which is the resurrection of Gavin stone that movie was in in a sense almost sacrificed at the altar of my own the the measurement of the success wasn't Gavin Stone's Financial results because those never went those never improved it it maintained its failure so then what's the success yeah well it's not necessarily um that nich's book ended up even though it only sold 200 copies ended up still having impact uh the resurrection gone that movie is not in 50

years people aren't going to say even though it only did $2.3 million inspired millions of people uh that movie is is is the is the again I don't know if I have a better term for it kind of sacrifice yeah because the story that God is telling In This Moment is is at the risk of sounding arrogant my story story um it's ultimately again skipping ahead for a moment The Chosen became the thing that was the well you said something okay now you said something that I thought was crucial I'm hoping I can reproduce it

and I'm I'm not I'm sure I don't have this exactly right but you said something like you you determined at that moment that the outcome wasn't the proper measure and then you described how using the outcome as the measure could be contam at by your own self-interest your pride your desire to be attractive to people to be accepted in Hollywood all of that so there's a pride element to that you said instead that you were going to adjudicate the moral acceptability of your actions by what by by determining whether they were an accurate a genuine

reflection of your relationship what with God okay what do that mean exactly to you like take that apart cuz that's it's analogous to this notion of the truth will set you free as a definition right so you said you're you're switching the criteria that you're using yes okay how how did you come up with the new criteria and how do you know that you're genuinely applying those criteria you know in a way that isn't contaminated let's say by pride and self-interest I actually wrote about it on Facebook a few days later I did this long

post where I just said okay I'm not going to pretend that I can convince you to go see this movie now I'm I've surrendered it here's what's happened it failed period end of sentence now what why do I feel I actually use the word free why do I feel more freedom right now than at any other time in my life the truth will set you free where does that freedom come from and that was the experience you had oh absolutely so in that moment I went from how do I wrestle with this how do I

understand how do I what what went wrong was it me was it God was it Satan was it my friends was it the studio what what brought me to this place it didn't matter anymore in my life right now for the first time in decades I was perfectly willing to never make another film or TV show if that's what God wanted now I didn't know if that was what was God God wanted I didn't know what the future held uh business how did that trans how do you think that transformation came about I mean it's

linked to this message that you had received and the timeliness of that but and the delivery of the message the fact that the message was you you could you call this a coincidence could you call it a coincidence it's such a such an extraordinary coincidence similar I've heard your story you talk about your wife what God put on her heart how she knew yeah you know and you go I yes it's quite a coincidence it's such a coincidence that I must you're kind of screwed both ways when The Coincidence like that shows up because you

either don't believe it or you believe it it's like both way both are absurd in in a way the secularist or the humanist or the atheist would say Dallas it is a coincidence these things happen all the time uh I I I I don't know how you would calculate the odds of aincidence like that right I can't and so I I must accept God is clearly in this he is clearly communicating to me what must I draw from this well I I went to I I've I've I've attended business seminars every filmmaker will tell you

to have a plan fiveyear plan where are you going to be at in five years and Phil viser who's the creator of Veggie Tales and had a which which was 25 years ago huge and and then he had a similar crisis of Faith he lost it all he he was left Barren and and and found that God was trying to just get his attention he was God was saying to him I don't care what you do for me I care that you're doing it with me I want you I don't care about what you're giving

me that was his ultimate message I'll let him speak for himself but uh one of the things he said to me was where you're at in five years is none of your business so that for me was uh an extraordinary thought because I'm someone that's a weird one too because like I do believe that it's useful for people to flesh out a vision yes right but you have to do that in a kind of a detached way you have to understand that that's a first pass approximation and it's necessary but you don't want to fall

in love with it you don't want to be wedded to it you don't want to worship it as a final end let's say now it's also interesting that this message you got it's so pointed in relationship to how your attitude changed because you said this is the other part of this that's that's too coincidental in a way because what your remain your friend from your the message delivered for from Romania said to you was that your criteria for Success was inappropriate that's very targeted a especially for that moment so it's not only The Coincidence of

the overlap in theme it's that the message that you received was dead relevant to the problem you were trying to solve and to in a revolutionary way yes right so now you you have a different Hallmark for success and one of the proofs that that message struck homean was accurate was that instead of being in desperation as a consequence of the collapse of your vision you said that perversely even you felt free right that's very unlikely right that's a very unlikely outcome the most unlikely outcome is you're shattered at least for a good while right

and so and that would also indicate that you were laboring under a burden of yes success definition that was actually not good for you at all I was I was a performer I was I was performance that's a puppet that's like Pinocchio puppet right performing for the stage yes yeah and Mike been an actor yeah yeah so so you could say well your strings were cut no my actually strings became stronger it was the audience was removed from the from the equation am I still willing to be a boy on a string am I still

willing to be in service to God am I still willing to be bend the knee and and commit to a life of more of him less of me I am in service to him even if there's not an yeah but that's voluntary that's the difference between that being a puppet dancing on strings right it can be voluntary submission isn't dancing to the Pipers tune it's a different game fair but but I in that moment said Okay Okay God I I crumple up the 15 pages I I give up even so that's the past but I

also crumple up the future I don't know what my future is and I'm okay with that for the first time in my life it may mean I don't ever make why were you okay because I because I understood who God was and what he and and it was so clear he was present that I was like whatever those Five Loaves and fish are uh I'm okay as long as as long as you I'm willing to go along with it yes and so if that means we driving a bus uh for for just that I'm supporting

my family that's okay because what's more important is that I'm in your will and that I'm not basing my success or failure or my my uh my mood my my who I am as a husband and father on how well your identity yeah my better yeah thank you um my identity in in how people see me my identity and the Bible talks about the fear of man yeah right I I I had a fear of man more that that that I didn't maybe know I wouldn't have maybe admitted that about myself but clearly I knew

in that moment the fear of man was more than my fear of God right what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers bull market bare Market rates will rise rates will fall somebody please invent a crystal ball until then over 38,000 businesses have found a way to futureproof their operations with netsuite by Oracle the number one Cloud Erp imagine having your accounting financial management inventory and HR all seamlessly integrated into one fluid platform that's netw Suite with this unified business management Suite you're not just juggling numbers you're wielding

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businesses around the world whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions netw Suite adapts to your needs helping you respond to immediate challenges and Seize Your Biggest opportunities speaking speaking of opportunity download the cfo's guide to Ai and machine learning at netsuite.com jbp the guide is free to you at netsuite.com jbp that's nets.com jbp well that would be a Temptation obviously if you're going to be a filmmaker because one of the things you want to have happen is that you want people to watch your film so the so that's a positive in in

a way because you want to make something in a performative I'm in a performative field right problem is is when you're when you're basing your self worth on your status as a performer right that it becomes about you yes and that does make you a puppet and so one of the things we know as psychologists is that there's no difference between being self-conscious and being miserable those are so closely linked you can't separate them statistically and you know if you're on stage and you start worrying about how the audience is reacting to you you get

self-conscious and you stumble over your words you're embarrassed you you people can tell your self-conscious you get awkward yeah yeah and you say things like oh sorry I'm rambling yeah yeah that's right you start apologizing right which is a really bad thing to do on stage it's like well if you have to apologize for being on stage maybe you shouldn't be now the audience is above you on EX they're ahead of you continually continually it's worse it's the whim of the audience that's above you yeah that's that okay so that's cool so okay you have

you got a guy who is narcissistic in a field that Demands a bit of narcissism in order to succeed um in one moment being having all that taken away from him and the perverse consequence of that is that you feel free instead of demolished 100% yeah right so that's pretty funny all right okay okay so then so okay so let's continue what happens so uh for the next few months I'm like well I I U what's my future now I happen to be we won't get into this but I happen to be working at a

church in Illinois at this time so I had made certain movies i' but but but they had hired me to come make movies within the context of this uh this large Church in Illinois and so um one of the things that I had done previously was for Good Friday services or for Christmas services at this huge Church of 12,000 people which had huge Good Friday services eight of them over the course of two days for 2,000 people per service my task was to make these short films or vignettes about Jesus and so going back as

far as you know 2012 I was doing these little like it's where I met Jonathan roomy who plays Jesus in The Chosen is was I was doing a short film about the crucifiction from the perspective of the two thieves on the cross and so this notion of telling the stories that I've heard hundreds of times but from different perspectives had already proven itself over the last five years to be an extraordinary tool in unlocking people's emotional connection to Theory why what did you see when you were making those films what sort of impact was that

having so for example um instead of being just what most Bible projects are like I assume you've seen like have you seen the Jesus of Nazareth miniseries have you seen any of these kind of Jesus movies no no the chosen is the one that I've watched oh well good um but the genre of biblical film making particularly Jesus film making tends to be verse by verse it's a reenactment of the verses that you're reading it's not a story per se that you're telling that follows traditional threea structure other than the fact that a lot of

Jesus stories do but it's and then Jesus did this and then Jesus did that and then he encountered a blind man right so is it fair to say that that's the subordination of the movie to the text yes and which makes for sometimes an enjoyable Recreation of what you already believe but certainly not a good movie yeah yeah and that's a crucial thing it's a crucial thing you know um I have a very large collection of Russian propaganda art like 400 pieces a lot and I've studied propaganda a lot and propaganda is the subversion of

art to a yes it's like a subversion of art to an outcome it's kind of like what we're talking about with regards to your criteria for Success you already know what the target is the thing about telling a story is a story is a quest yes you don't know what the outcome is now you might say I want to make this story in a way that serves the highest possible purpose that's pretty that gives you a lot of degrees of freedom but the story isn't genuine the story isn't genuine like a conversation isn't genuine if

you know what the outcome's going to be like our conversation here I don't know where it's going to go right I want to I want to let it go where it's going to go the religious films can be propagandistic just like political films they almost always yeah I know and then they fail they're not interesting and I don't I think not only do they not serve the religious purpose then I think they harm it 100 because it looks like it's it's it's the hijacking of the quest in art to push forward a message that's predetermined

it's not an exploration there's not even any faith in it right because corre there's no there's no risk in a way right yeah so it doesn't work and you know part of the reason I think that one of the things I've learned about atheists because I've learned a lot about atheists discussing religious issues with atheists have you ever been one do you think that there's been a time in your life where you where you would have said I I I don't believe there's a God or have you always been agnostic on the verge of back

and forth you know wrestling I think I was never an atheist because I was never confident enough in my own doubt to Proclaim it as a virtue in a way you know I I I knew it at Mi at minimum I knew that I didn't know what the hell was going on there's another thing that mitigated against that too is that I've believed in evil since I was very young which and so helpful well well maybe you believe in evil you believe in good because it's the opposite of evil and so now amorphous though that

may be okay so now propaganda you learned that you were telling stories and and you were doing that by showing these stories from a new light okay so how did you how did you come across that as an idea well honest ironically enough I I was listening to a sermon from a pastor in Louisville his name is Kyle idelman um and he was preach he did a sermon on the the the crucifixion and the story of the crucifixion and Jesus's relationship with the two thieves on the cross takes just a few verses right so in

just a few verses a man goes from mocking Jesus and seeing those mocking Jesus and joining in on the mockery and within just a few verses says uh I want to be with you I I believe in you you know right right right a lot of transformation packed into a very short period of time as a Storyteller it's pretty bad storytelling there's no Journey we just know he was mocking him a few verses later he believed in him you know there's no there's no three act structure there I mean I guess there's the first and

the third act there's there's the before and the after but there's no middle and and and so what would lead him what would what this pastor was saying what might have he heard from Jesus that could have caused him to break right and so this pastor ained not claiming fact but he apped what if it was he was broken by Jesus's comment forgive them Father for they know not what they do you know some of this he's being mocked he's being moed well that would be a thing to be broken by if you actually saw

it happen right so you're you're mocking him you're mocking him you're joining in the mockery and he's just completely not only is he not phased and broken by it he's actually praying for the Forgiveness of the people who are doing it and he means it and he means it right right so that's what his opinion was and I thought that was very compelling and I thought I want to make a short film where we unpack the backstory the before and that's a word we use all the time okay so that there's a lot in that

story that needs unpacking too it's like there's lots of things in principle that you could have taken inspiration from why do you think that hit you what he was doing why do you think that captured your because that's a calling right that's the manifestation of a calling and it has a big effect as it turns out so something is being born there something triggers what a commitment or an interest what happens exactly when you see him it's a very it's a very quick and easy answer I'm a Storyteller so you know just for example I

watch your gospel series on daily wire and I and I'm seeing extraordinary intellectuals wrestle with and discuss and debate and I'm watching it and of course it speaks to me because I'm I love the gospels and I've been a Believer as long as I can remember and I'm I've been tasked and stewarded with again fast forward for a second with with portraying the gospel story to the world through the medium of television in this way that has seemingly transcended cultures and boundaries and so I'm interested in it from that perspective but I listen to some

of you talk and I go yeah I that's fascinating but I my job and my calling and my interest in my skill set is to is to tell it as a as a story and I'm because I'm a Storyteller I'm attracted to the emotional as much or more than the intellectual and so I've known these stories all my life but ever since I was a kid when I was a little kid I would hear Sunday School Stories and I'm going what would it have been like to sit around with Jesus at a campfire what was

it like to be a sibling of Jesus and to argue with him and then his parents come involved and and they always side with Jesus because he's never wrong you know what would it been like to go to school with with the perfect Son of God all those I was always intrigued by those and the reaction you just had where you chuckled I'm like that was me I'm going and I would say that I'd go can you imagine what it had been like to be Jesus's brother and to go mom Jesus do this again and

and and and Jes his mom says well you need to you need to make the adjustment he's like you're always on Jesus can do no wrong he's the perfect child mom's like well yes he is actually that's very funny so those kinds of things I was I was 8 years golden was wrestling with that right so I've always I'm well and there people there are people who are natural storytellers but that's a real gift and it's well my father is an author of over 200 books he's one of the most prolific authors of all time

uh right so you came by it honestly yes and so I'm a Storyteller in the classroom I was a Storyteller when I wasn't supposed to be I've always been a Storyteller so when when a pastor is unpacking three to four verses uh with an intellectual conclusion the part that speaks most to me is the story what might have been the back story I'm like well I'm on the cas you see with Christ's Parables frequently like an amalgam of those two approaches you know because he'll tell a story and then the disciples for example will say

well you know thank you but we don't really get it and then he'll lay out the explanation I've certainly found in my lectures that the most effective way of driving a point home is to tell a story and to provide an explanation right the story is brought this is it's like the playoff intellect actually between dovi and N who are aiming in very similar directions dovi dovi stories cover a much broader territory than n is thinking but they're but they're but they're less explicit right they're less propositional so that there's a there's a loss there

because it's not as defined n is more defined and more specific but there's a loss because the expanse that dovi covers is brought I I'll give you an example so in the Brothers karamazov the hero is a noviciate named elosha and he's contrasted alosia is a very good person but he's not an intellectual and his arguments aren't as tightly formulated and pointed as they might be he's often at a loss for words his brother Ivan is hyper charismatic and unbelievably pointed in his propositional reasoning and if he goes head-to-head with the alosia he can win

argument but he loses the battle because as the story unfolds you see that the goodness of alosia triumphs over the luciferian rationality of Ivan Ivan wins all the battles you might say but loses the war and dovi could portray that because he used a story like ni as a philosopher would have to make the philosophical case for alosha that isn't what happens in doeski doeski shows what happens as eliosi's life unfolds he does the same thing in his book The Idiot which is about a prince who's an analog of Christ who is a holy fool

and and who people have some pity for but he's a he's a very good person and you see that unfold in the story dovi is showing how a life well- lived is triumphs over an argument well formulated that's a good way of thinking about it correct and I I am I know just enough I'm a good enough arguer well I'm a good enough formul arguments to be dangerous but at my heart I always find that the way into the persuasion if you want to look at it from that way is storytelling and it always seems

to persuasion or communication both yeah okay so if I say to you right now so this morning I wake up and I get out of bed the simple fact of me saying that you're going well well then what happened even though you know that it's probably in in most likely Bal it's it's it's not very few sign ific things happen when you just get out of bed but but you're intrigued right that's that's all I know I don't know that I can intellectualize why I just know that it works and I know that um that

when I set out to make that short film about the two thieves we showed their backstory we showed how they met we showed again all through not fact but through what we call plausibility what is it plausible what would havein the cultural context the historical context so my co-writer Tyler Thompson at the time had never written a screenplay in his life uh but we were working at the same place and and he's brilliant at connecting the Old Testament to the new he's brilliant with historical context and cultural context and so we work together to Fashion

a plausible backstory for the two thieves Jesus doesn't show up until the last five minutes of the short film so we spend 20 minutes establishing the the things that led these two thieves to be on the cross and they finally get on the cross and we get to the crucifixion moment when Jesus is there and the audience of course in a church is going all right now we now we're here we get it this is the crucifixion story we've heard so many times but we're seeing all these comment from Jesus that are in scripture we're

seeing them now through the lens of the two thieves on the cross this backstory that we've been following and so what happened to your question is the audience I saw and experienced and they told me there was a significant aha moment right right a I had that's a revelatory moment I had yes I had never considered this it makes more sense to me now now when I read things go together yes now when I read these four four verses I actually can not only understand it perhaps a little better but also can see myself in

the thief on the cross and that's the problem with most biblical storytelling is that it's Through The Eyes Of Jesus Jesus actually doesn't make for a good protagonist in a drama because he doesn't necessarily outside of that moment in scripture where it says he grew in wisdom and stature but once his ministry starts uh he's he doesn't make for great protagonist because he doesn't necessarily learn he doesn't necessarily go from bad to good or anything like that he and so when we see all these Miracles that he's performing and these life change that he's that

he's causing we don't know anything about the people that that that he's causing it for if that that's a clunky way of saying it but but we don't how can we unpack the the the woman who's been bleeding for 12 years and touches the Hem of this garment well so what you're doing it's analogous I would say to let's say what the Renaissance artists in particular did when they were painting images from the Bible right they're taking textual reference and they're fleshing them out now it's a static image although a great Renaissance painting with insanely

packed insanely packed with information but you have the advantage of being able to do that in three dimensions right because you can add that temporal element so you can you can use your imagination see this is it's interesting a because this is analogous to what the great psychoanalytic thinkers did in relationship to dream analysis yes so so a a a client would tell them a dream fragment and they would ask the client to let their imination range to flesh out the territory that was associated with the dream images so that would be the first step

and then the second step would be for the analyst himself to participate in that so if I was doing dream analysis with a client or merely listening for that matter I'd watch like your wife was watching when she got that message about the uh the fish and the Lowe's and the fishes I'd watch to see if an image or an idea flashed into my mind and one of of the things I was doing as a therapist is you'd tell me something and something would be triggered in my mind so it's Associated now we're similar in

some ways so if I have an association to what you're saying it's possible that it's also fleshing out the broader meaning now you're taking these biblical stories that are fragments of a narrative obviously because the thieves had a life and you're letting your imagination flesh them out right yes and and amplifying them Ignatius talked about that he said St Ignatius when he say we're to read the Bible with a holy a sacred imagination right right the text isn't meant Protestants are uncomfortable with this I'm I'm I'm an Evangelical Protestant I'm not a Catholic so I'm

I'm I'm raised to be a little more protective and to the Fidelity of the text the text the text that's why there aren't too many things like the chosen because typically it's well we don't want to expand your imagination can run wild into a danger you can there's no doubt about that but but that's also the the thing about the text is the Bible is insanely hyperlink and so like crazily hyper it's really the world's first hyperlink text and so it's not like there's a linear Voyage Through the text because each verse refers to like

five other verses or 50 and each of them refer to 50 and so there's a lot of imaginative pathways through the text that are valid textual interpretations now the Protestants who are skeptical or right that you can deviate and heretically and that that's a problem an Evangelical would say well yes there it's hyperlink but stay there don't don't bring your own Humanity into the imagination of it stick to the text yes this verse is is is set up by a verse written thousands of years ago and that's beautiful and that's perfect because God wrote this

book so that's okay but when you start to bring your own analysis to it now we're treading on thin ice and that's that's for the realm of pastors to provide commentary not for Dallas Jenkins to tell his own story as Christmas approach is there's a beautiful opportunity to keep God at the center of this season through hallow the number one Prayer app they're launching a special Advent prayer challenge called for God so love the world that promises to be a transformative spiritual journey this challenge features an incredible lineup of guides survivalist Bear Grills and Jonathan

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center and experience the good that comes from it that's hall.com Jordan for 3 months free just because something has dangers doesn't mean it isn't useful and just because it's useful doesn't mean it doesn't have dangers I mean you can wander into heretical or hallucinogenic or Psychopathic yes territory with by deviating too far away from you look at a movie like The Last Temptation Of Christ from Martin scors he's exploration of things and Christians most most Christians were horrified uh to to to imply I mean SC was was exploring Jesus as humanity and it was it

went too far right and so they're like we well that was Nikos kazus work right he got excommunicated right but then it's put in the hands of a of a of a struggling Catholic right who who has made movies that that most Christians would never even dare to see but of course if you look closely you can see a a spiritual Beauty and taxi driver and enraging bull and some of things but it's it's a little too too uh risque you might risque yeah vulgar right yeah yeah so so I became comfortable with that as

an Evangelical church was comfortable with it not only comfortable because it felt so plausible and yet it was rooted in a Fidelity to scripture meaning it wasn't made by someone who doubts it you know you look at the the movie Noah from Darren aronowski where many Christians were offended by that because he he was exploring Noah the story of Noah as a as an environmentalist Manifesto of sorts and Ridley Scott doing Exodus story uh with about Moses and he he's clearly not a Believer and so that was textual interpretation gets subverted to the psyche of

The Interpreter the danger that the Protestants are warning against correct but when it's in the hands of someone like myself who is a Believer and who has been raised and trained in Fidelity to scripture and loves it so my artistic imagination has some boundaries to it that I see this is Jonathan Paso has done on the iconography side right he was trained as a modern artist but he adopted an attitude of respect and Fidelity to the tradition and that bounded his artistic imagination yes right but it provided it with structure and it also it's interesting

because that means that his artistic vision is now in sync with this broader tradition which is what you're striving to do by your own testimony or admission here you're approaching the text in so far as you can manage it with respect and honor yes and then what you'd hope and I think I do think this is how it works to the degree that your intent is pure so to speak in relationship to those your imagination will fall into line that's how imagination Works cuz it's a go directed process yeah so your goal and maybe that's

part of what happened in that transformation too is right because you said you switched from outcome as evaluative standard to something like relationship or Covenant as standard that should mean that your imagination is much more reliable yes yeah yeah okay may that accounts for Jonathan's icon iconography is intended to point people to the to the thing not to him or to to the icon itself the icon is not an object of worship then that then if then if it was it would be an idol and we we're warned against idolatry so but iconography points people

to the thing so I know my place in this in in in this in this story which is I'm I'm not replacing the Bible I'm not God Jonathan who plays Jonathan roomy who plays Jesus Is Not Jesus and the and the show isn't scripture are you a prophet oh I'm not gonna well well I'm but I'm curious about I'm curious about this a because I kind of mean it technically and because the imagination properly harest is prophetic it can see around corners and you know you you've adopted a given aim and we've fleshed out what

that aim is and you are expanding upon and exploring the text so now I would say I'm a heral okay how would you distinguish that a Herald is calling you to to to to look at the thing and he's Gathering you right uh when we went to I went to Israel in 2017 with Rabbi Jason soel who's the Messianic Jewish rabbi who's one of our consultants and so I went to Israel and I'll I'll get to that in a mo in in a bit because there was a a profound spiritual moment that happened there too

but one of the things that happened on that trip was we went to the Sea of Galilee and saw uh we while we're talking about what took place at the Sea of Galilee and investigating it there happened to be a man on a boat who was fishing with his net and it was extraordinary it was an oldfashioned boat it was not you know a motorboat you know and he's Gathering and and there's a parable that Jesus gives uh in in the gospels about the the parable of the Nets where he says a fisherman's job is

to gather the fish and they separate the the good from the rotten and they toss the rotten back in so it will be at the End of the Age you gather the fish and the angels will separate the evil from the righteous I'm calling you to be a fisher of men he says that to Simon Peter from now on I will make you fishes of men and you are to gather as many as possible all kinds I will sort them out later so I we had a profound m one of the profound moments not the

ultimate one but one of them was me going I think that's what I am I'm a gatherer I gather fish into the net and I let God work out what the result of that is I'm not trying to convert you in my show although that has happened to be a a a very common occurrence or I'm not I'm not hoping no that's one of the reasons that your show can be watched as far as I'm concerned because there isn't that element of compulsion and Force and and propagandistic intent correct that by the way does drive

so much atheist resistance like a lot of atheists are not merely rationalist materialist determinists let's say who are skeptical that's sort of their intellectual facade a very large number of them were hurt by religious people using Force to drive home their beliefs right not helpful and you know I'm always leery of religiously themed entertainment because it's it's got that propagandistic element of subversion and even though hypothetically it's for a good cause it just it makes me Revolt right let's say right The Chosen didn't do that I enjoyed watching it partly because it succeeds on the

basis of its ability to tell a story which is that and it's weird that that should be the first thing right but it has to be I I don't think anything can take Primacy over the story I don't doesn't look like it to me that's where the feeding of the 5000 story again rears its I wouldn't say ugly head rears its beautiful head because when I'm writing I'm not thinking about trying to quote unquote convert or or even feed 5,000 people I'm trying to tell a great story I'm trying to honor God and tell tell

as close as I can the truth of the character and intentions of Jesus in the gospels and so that's my job in these and when I first started doing it with my co-writer are you guarding your okay so this is a very tricky question I suppose I mean now all your other questions have been completely they've just been nothing I know yeah 2 plus 2al well one of the dangers too is that you get concerned about your okay as I've become more successful let's say as a public Communicator a podcaster the temptation to protect my

reputation in relationship to my selection of guests increases should I really talk to that person right if I get worried about my reputation then I'm going to fail because the the wrong thing is driving me forward all I've been using this podcast for is to talk to people who's who I want to hear from so I can learn something that's it if I get cons okay for you as a Christian if you get concerned about your reputation as a Christian you're going to get dull quick right I tell people that all the time they'll say

why do you why do you do this show and when you when I'm sitting on in my laptop with my laptop in my living room if I'm thinking about this scene will cause yeah right YouTube videos to come up like they have over the last several years about me you can look on YouTube right now and find plenty of videos talking about my my heresy and my my that I'm leading people to hell because I'm not just you know whatever or you can find videos that are saying that I'm the greatest Storyteller ever and that

this show has changed their life if I start to seek to pursue the the the the latter and and avoid the former then then you're done I'm not making a good story well you can see this is what's happened to Hollywood in relationship to the woke ideology it's like as soon as pleasing the woke ideologues becomes the goal then the stories are like instantly contemptible oh 100% they're they're just they're worse than dull and the people participate in them are empty and it just dies it just as we've seen it just dies so my comfort

with telling those stories in the way that I am could have only come from that moment at 4 o'clock in the morning where I gave up so the feeding the 5,000 that I felt responsible for not only refers to financial success it refers to spiritual um achievement right Mission I I can't feel like my mission is to or more fish or when I gather them I'm responsible for putting the the righteous in this boat and the evil into the that's God's job right so I'm a gatherer I'm a Herald so that's to your question okay

okay so my comfort with with telling those stories could have only happened after that moment that happened in 4 o'clock in the morning and so what happened after we've had several short films in vignettes over the years that had had that resulted in that aha moment it was clear that we were on to something it was clear that telling stories from a different lens allowed people to unpack it differently so for example I filmed a Vette um around the crucifixion where where Peter is wrestling with how is this possible that the Messiah could have died

if he's the Messiah why would he die that might must have missed it right and so he's flash outcome right so he's flashing back to when Jesus um uh he's flashing back to when Jesus called him Peter and called him the Rock and said you now have the keys to the kingdom of heaven y y so he's flashing back to that moment well I went to that moment and I started it with two disciples arm wrestling and they're just having fun around the fire this is goes back to my eight-year-old self what would have been

like to sit around the fire with Jesus with the 12 disciples and they're just friends what are they doing and so they're they're arm wrestling and I have one of the disciples have a surprise victory over the other the other one had been undefeated and Andrew defeats Fus and they go oh my goodness look what happened he won and uh and and John saysi can't believe Andrew Beat Thaddius and Jesus says even I didn't see that coming right Jesus making a joke about his own Divinity and I remember leading up to that my wife amandy

had even said I don't know I don't know if this is you know sometimes people are uncomfortable with with so much Humanity of Jesus right I'm assuming that's a good joke right I that's what I thought it's a good joke yeah so I remember I'll never forget it I'm watching I'm waiting that joke comes and the audience laughs hard but I can I'm a fairly good audience Gauger and I could tell it was not only just a laughter of humor it was a laughter of relief sure they the the the the I don't know the

air was let out of the balloon maybe it was and I've had people coming up to me going oh my goodness seeing Jesus have fun seeing Jesus laugh with his friends was a was a revelatory moment for them it unlocked it made everything else make more sense it brought it more more brought some play into it of course but then by that CA then then it opens you to the to the next part which is when he calls Peter Rock the serious stuff your your your soil is killed because you've you're laughing because you're Charmed

because and this clearly must have been how Jesus was because why else would children have found him so attractive why else with thousands of people followed him around just to hear him speak so it was not an offensive thing it was a lifegiving thing and so we we we learned that that worked right so that was the training ground for so a few months fast forward to a few months after my failure after my moment at 4 in the morning and I take the script that had written a year and a half earlier about the

birth of Christ from the perspective of the Shepherds I put it on the Shelf because of my Hollywood movie right well I'm thinking I'm willing to drive a bus I'm willing to get a normal job whatever it takes but but you know let's pull this off and I'm still working at this church I've still got the security of that job I say to them you want to do another short film let's film it for Christmas Eve and they loved it right so I'm on my friend's Farm in Illinois 20 minutes from my house uh I'm

I'm filming this short film called the shepherd and it's about what the Shepherds would have been experiencing that morning and and and what it would have been like to be a shepherd and what it would have been like to be in the marketplace that day in Bethlehem selling your sheep for Slaughter and and then that night while you're out in the field you're visited by a host of angels and choosing you as Shepherds the lowliest of the low in society so we're going to unpack that we see it in scripture briefly but it doesn't scripture

doesn't say the Shepherds who happen to be lowly and happen to be poor and you have to unpack that somehow you have to get that from somewhere beside scripture so that's what we're doing and that short film while I was making it again it felt like a big step down from a Hollywood opportunity I'm again I'm on my friend's Farm in Illinois good story though yeah right so I'm making this little thing and I'm like why is it that this feels so small and yet I'm more comfortable than I've ever been why am right that's

a good question yes so I went home to my wife and I'm like it's not so small then is it right right it's like maybe my criteria for what constitutes small has been wrong right and that's where I go Loaves and fish Loaves and fish I'm just focused on the five and two and this is my five- two right now didn't even feel like five and two it feels like one and and a half it's small but it's it's lifegiving and I'm good at it I could tell I'm better at this than I am anything

else biblical storytelling uh seems to be e easier for me I don't struggle with it as much I'm on set I'm more comfortable so it's a door that opens if you on it yes yes so I'm telling the story and it and I'm I love it and I'm feeling like it's good and while I'm doing that I'm also I'm binge watching The Wire uh on HBO which is a show that's been around for years and it's it's vulgar but I'm I'm I'm binge watching it and and I'm appreciating the storytelling and I'm how this show

covers multiple it covers the cops it covers the city hall it covers the people on the streets it's a crime show but it covers multiple angles and I'm like that's never been done before in a Jesus story when we you know in a Jesus movie or miniseries that's all there's ever been is movies and miniseries which are limited by their time and because of their Limited in in time they don't explore much more than and then Jesus did this and then this verse verse by verse Miracle to Miracle that's what these are and I'm like

what if we had a multi-season show where you have the time to develop the Back stories and develop this context like I did in 20 minutes in the in the birth story that's where I had the idea oh yeah cool but no one's lining up around the block to do a show about Jesus and certainly not with someone like myself who's failed and coming off of her career failure but I'm like boy whoever does this I think is going to be really smart because I think it's gonna really impact people like these short stories seem

to do very very long story short the the short film uh got in the hands of a streaming platform at the time it was called vid Angel they Lov it viit Angel at the time they're now Angel studi oh yes yeah yeah yeah um and they uh they loved the short film and loved my idea for a show and they said uh we want to do this we want to support you and I said great and I got was very excited and then they said we should raise why why did they like it they watched

that short film and burst into almost uncontrollable tears there that's good that's good there's something you hit aord there was something almost Transcendent about about what happened with that short film that little thing I did on my friend's Farm 20 minutes from my house people so when they said we're going to put it on social media and that will be the tool to raise crowdfunding right so that was their idea the crowdfunding idea I thought it was a ridiculous idea uhuh but Loaves and fish this Christmas as we celebrate the gift of life you have

an opportunity to share the same gift with a mother and her baby imagine a young young woman facing an unplanned pregnancy feeling alone and unsure of what to do she's searching for Hope and that's where pre-born Ministries comes in Dianna already had eight children and was in a tumultuous marriage the thought of another child was more than she could bear she tried to order the abortion pill but by God's design it never came at 18 weeks along Diana visited a pre-born network Clinic while getting her sonogram her baby waved at her then she remembered that

this was the baby that she had asked God for God saved her baby that day and he also saved her this Christmas for just $28 you can help save life life and thanks to a special matching Grant your gift is doubled just $28 provides one ultrasound 140 sponsors 5 that means your 140 gift becomes 280 potentially helping 10 mothers and their unborn children to support this vital work D pound 250 and say the key word baby that's pound 250 keyword baby or visit pre-born docomo pre-born maintains a four-star charity rating and all gifts are tax

deductible join us in supporting this crucial work visit preborn docomo toay right right that's for sure a year ago I would have said no that won't work therefore we must do an a different plan I it required some outside of the box thinkers who don't you know who who aren't conventional to to come up with the idea and it required a broken surrendered that interes too because that's another indication where your your a priori tyrannical presumptions about what the right path must be yes which is a weird thing to think you know about when you're

trying to do something impossible say like tell a gospel story to a hoorde of people it's like I know how to do that it's like probably know and so these people offer you this unconventional opportunity and partly because you now know that you don't know what the hell you're doing and all that prideful presumption has disappeared you're willing to take a a a shot at it crack at it yeah that's my job is to provide this short film and then to to humbly request people if you love this you can contribute to season of this

multi-season Bible show that's an invitation it's an invitation yeah and for whatever reason 16,000 people around the world contributed $10 million based on this little 20-minute short and talk about a market test talk about a market test but also talk about my wife a year later once when we hit that $10 million Mark and shattered the all-time crowdfunding record for media projects and now it comes into understanding what we were being communicated a year earlier from from from God which is see right surrender Five Loaves and two fish well that even that drives the point

home even more because you know what what you just laid out it's so interesting because the story that you told in the last part of our discussion the second half parallels the first half almost perfectly in that you noted that like the message to you was that you were supposed to concentrate on what you had to offer and not to pay attention to the okay then you notice that your proper offering see God tells Cain that if he offered what was best he would be accepted and so his message to Cain is you're failing because

you're not offering what's best so that begs the question well how do you know what's best well you said you said look I was willing to follow my intuition with regards to storytelling I was following a path that it I had known about since I was very young this storytelling path I was willing to use my imagination I was willing to humble myself to not do the Hollywood thing but just to continue telling the story then I noticed that I was very good at this and that people responded very positively to it and that I

was calm and interested while I was doing it which is probably good indication that like those what other their standards would you use for evaluating what the best you had to offer would be and so that's so cool because it's not what you thought but it is what you experienced right so now you then you show the results of your film to ad what were they called at the time vid angel now they're called vid Angel and then it was Angel Studios and they provide you with an unorthodox opportunity and then the genuine fruits of

what you had offered come to make themselves manifest that's so cool it's so cool that those things are paralleled with that message that you got from Romania right right okay so you ra no right but at no point during the process am I ever skipping steps I'm still at the Loaves and fish step Loaves and fish so oh we raised $10 million well that's amazing that's cool the old me would have felt pretty darn good about myself and then said well this should lead to then the next thing no which would be the Hollywood film

no no okay now I'm tasked with making season one do we know okay so now by then you're wise enough to not stop doing what you're actually good at in favor of this other Vision that you had that would be it's not surprising you had it because you're you're one be a filmmaker and there's the Hollywood model but that obviously isn't the kind of filmmaker that you are right and it turns out that the kind of filmmaker you are takes a very different pathway but that there's tremendous opportunity there which is exactly what happened with

the sure but I don't think it would have been possible well no no it's I should say that again I know it wouldn't have been possible and I don't think God would have given it to me had I not had the surrender much about my own Brokenness as it was about oh you finally figured it out you finally figured out what good at now you're ready to to succeed it's no you finally figured out the the the surrender necessary to even be good at what you do the show right better than probably kudos to you

for at least what would you say this that's humility you at least had the willingness to pay attention yes to what the failure might have been indicating without losing faith faith yeah right so that's good I've made a couple of good decisions I'll give myself credit I've made good five good Five Loaves and two fish I'm not going to be falsely modest about that but the feeding of the 5,000 not only is not something I don't think about while I'm doing it I also don't take responsibility for it when it happens I take responsibility for

making really good Five Loaves and two fish figured out the recipe and I catch good fish and and God uses them and and they're they're impacting people so that we get to that place where now I have the means to do season one yet still not knowing if there's going to be a season two God never lets me get ahead of myself or feel comfortable with well now I've finally arrived so we're we make season 1 and it takes some time to resonate because it's on a new app and it's hard to find right well

you have a whole new distribution like this is a whole new ecosystem for film making and distribution right so a whole another episode could be could talk about the the business assumptions that were wrong over and over and over again before God you know we we how many times we had to start all over to figure things out but long story short it was clear that when people did watch it there was a Transcendent response of some kind I mean it was clear that the emotion of it the humanity of it I consider my job

to be um to to be twofold as a Storyteller and as a Herald uh number one it's to take Jesus down from stained glass windows and to take the disciples down from stained glass windows into the formality of religion that sometimes can distance ourselves from Jesus uh from a pure relationship with God sometimes uh you know the we we say that uh we even evangelicals sometimes say religion is about uh man's attempts to reach God uh true relationship with true Christianity is about God's attempts to reach man depends on how when you see the the

the painting of Jesus of of God and the father and Adam pointing at each other who's who's reaching for who right and well Adam is sort of going like this yeah well we we cons evangelicals look at it like God's Reaching For Adam and he's accepting it right he's receiving it and so my job is to remove the religiosity of how we often times see God and we see him in P in paintings or stained glass windows and then even when we sometimes watch movies it still feels like a stained glass window he's very formal

and distant and Pious and and and not funny or not interesting or not charismatic and so my show is designed to bring Jesus down from the stained glass window or from the statue and remind you that he's a human being in addition to his divinity of course we still see him perform Miracles and FL Authority in the show but I'm curious for you as someone who is so intellectual when you saw Jesus for example example in the chosen brushing his teeth in a stream or winking at a at a friend or laughing at the at

the wedding at Kaa when you know before he does the miracle he's dancing with his friends and then it turns out ultimately the miracle comes down to a favor for his friends because his mom asked him to did you find that that diminished his divinity or did you find that it it it enhanced it or or I'm just curious for someone like yourself because for most people who watched it it was re the first thing the first thing I would say my first response to to The Chosen which I started watching in part out of

curiosity and in part because it had become a cultural phenomenon and I was curious about that well how many people were telling you like you probably had viewers and listeners going you buzz everywhere right because Christians all over the world have looked at you for the last several years as as a almost like a gateway drug into Christianity but still hoping when is when is Jordan Peterson like do you believe have you met the KNE how many people have asked you how many Christians have you met have gone so do you believe Jesus rose from

the dead no they asked me something worse they they the question usually is Do You Believe In Christ exactly the same way I claim to it's like yeah people are competing for Dr Jordan to bring them into their fold the correct yeah well and that's you know I mean that that's fine I suppose but it's it's uh there's something very sweet about it too well yes well yes that's what I mean by being fine it's just it's well it's something like you know look to your own salvation that's that's my fundamental attitude towards that with

regards to the chosen I mean the first I was watching it with my wife and she had undergone quite a profound religious transformation not too long before we started watching The Chosen and so what about your daughter M because Michaela had a similar she just decided to to surrender and give her life to Jesus and and then yeah well she had a very powerful experience that that preceded that and so yeah yeah but I watched The Chosen with Tammy and um and and so I was watching her watch it and and seeing her response the

first response I had was relief the relief was oh I can watch this because I'm very sensitive to propagandistic intent I don't like it at all even a bit of it is a turnoff for me and I thought no this is it kind of reminded me a bit of um The Master and Margarita do you know that book oh you you need to know the Master and Margarita it's it's it's an absolute staggering Masterpiece of Russian literature it's a story written in the 1930s by B man named bulgakov Satan comes to Earth in the Soviet

Union and he can do whatever he wants because no one believes he exists sure and and then there's a backstory this is why it would be so relevant to you bulgakov tells the story of Christ and his experience with his disciples in a manner that's analogous to what you're doing and it it's a brilliant book it's like dovi level brilliant well that probably eliminates me as a as a reader but I'll try oh oh I I think you'd find it it's a fascinating multi level book and I also really lik Nikos kazan's work he he

he did zor of the Greek for example a book most people know about but he wrote a variety of stories that have a very well the is it the Temptation the Temptation Of Christ is that the name of the book I can't remember at the moment he did a variety of of he I wish I could help you he produced a variety of stories that are similar to what you're doing with the chosen sure so so I was I was and then I thought well do I find this interesting independently of my religious convictions or

lack thereof and the answer to that was yes I really enjoyed it which was really what I was hoping for um you asked me a more specific question what did you think of of of the things like Jesus brushing his teeth in a stream which seem seem normal but but to to an average Christian never thought of part of the insistence the Christian insistence since time in Memorial was that Christ was fully God and fully human yes so the human part needs to be demonstrated with a commitment that's equal to the Divine part and I

thought I couldn't see how that could have been handled better than the manner in which it was handled in your series and I found myself more than pleased to continue watching I'm going to put that on our poster well it's a hard Dr Jordan Peterson more than pleased to continue watching this yeah well it was a like I said it was a relief because yes it if it you you you avoided all of the cliche Temptations of the easily parody Evangelical tradition yes right that's a hard thing to pull off and I also thought this

was this is something else it's beautiful that's C that's that's seriously important like cinematography is top rate the acting is top rate like the quality of the production is extremely because you can use it as an excuse you know you see another part of the problem with propagandistic religious entertainment is that it's often low quality and you're supposed to pretend that doesn't matter you think it doesn't have to be good well it's about God so like how high quality does it really have to be it's like of the highest possible quality and independent of the

religious message and I thought the acting was great and I wanted to know what was going to happen next it was a real Cliffhanger and so I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the continuing Seasons I I I'm curious you know it's not atypical for a series to wne as it progresses not always but that can happen I mean it exhausts itself or people get tempted by the success of the series to warp it in one you know or or even the similarity of the previous three seasons as an artist we have to

break out we have to do something different we have to go left now instead of right or you can get stuck repeating what you already did so how are you feeling about the new season that's up that's that's forth coming well everyone who's seen it so far this is season 5 we're currently finishing it and and those who've seen it and read the scripts and the actors who like while we were filming it we're all saying oh this is our best season yet without oh oh that's good yeah and it's um and and and you

might think well they're just biased it there's recency biased no they they said no they could get exhausted because they go into each season when they get the scripts the Actors and The Crew going oh please be good expecting it to do what you just said which is to start to Wayne and and I I would argue that we've become we've gotten better as storytellers and as filmmakers now to be fair we're we're blessed by the story getting I mean we're season five is Holy Week it's the most impactful and important week in the history

of humanity right right there's a big mouthful of chew and you see Jesus show sides of himself he's never shown which is turning over the tables of the temple and yelling and and then right willingly giving himself up and and you see the the the the betrayer emerge Judas breaks bad in during Holy Week right and a million people both conspiring with Caiaphas yes where we're where we are now and and of course in Holy Week is in history it was over a million people all gathered in one city most of as many friends of

Jesus as enemies were Believers and people who wanted him killed and they're all now in one powder kit right right so that makes hot town in hot time in the old town tonight so I can't take too much credit for the for the unique excitement of season five uh it's not necessarily that I'm a better storyteller although I think I am but it's also that the text is giving me much so much to work with but uh I think another thing that sometimes causes people to shows to Wayne is what you said earlier which is

they get they get enraptured by the success and so I always am brought back to that moment back at four o00 in the morning and I surrendered and recognized my own humanity and my own sinfulness and my own narcissism and my own need for surrender and my giving of and God strike my soul if I if I go back to who I was the day before no kidding so yeah yeah because you know it's a it's a very bad thing to be bad but it's a very it's a much worse thing to return to being

bad after you've recognized that that was insufficient that's a much worse that's that parable about the servant who doesn't know what he's doing being whipped with few blows and a servant who knows what he's doing being well condemned to Hell fundamentally right right because it's one thing to be bad unconsciously and it's another thing to have learned and then return you know to your to your and you just brought up what I think is a potentially strong I don't know if I want to call it a conclusion to our conversation about the specifics of the

show but to to an understanding of what I think makes the show work which is that um Jesus knows our hearts he wants a relation he he he wants a relationship with you specifically so whether he's healing you calling you to follow him or rebuking you it's not based on a paint by numbers one size fits all he knows what's in your heart he knew what I needed to to to become the creator of the chosen it wasn't the same thing as someone else needed right he spoke to me directly and and and and my

wife Amanda is here uniquely to make sure that I don't go back to who I was you know the the day before that moment and so when Jesus Jesus calls us differently I mean the message of Salvation is the same but the the calling is specific and that's what you see in the show is that when you see Jesus in the show his we we've we've probably by season five have shown I don't know a dozen or more miracles or more than that callings rebukes all of that but each time it's specific to the heart

of the person he's talking to and we do that cinematography too we shrink the moment so that it feels personal and what everyone says to me when they recognize me in public nine times out of 10 and I'm not exaggerating when I say this will say to me thank you for the show and they'll start to cross and you experien this too how many people when they meet you start to cry not because you're a celebrity but because something Chang something's changed I've experienced that in my life well you know we'll talk about this off

camera but some of the people in our Lives who you've changed just from something you've said or written and so people will come up to me and they'll start to cry but nine times out of 10 when when they say something about the show it's always it feels personal yeah right it doesn't feel like I'm walking in and I love St Peter great Storyteller makes the archetypal personal that's what the Storyteller does and that's what I mean when I say I'm taking him down from the stain glass window so I visit St Peter's Basilica in

Italy and it's one of the most probably the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life it's just beyond belief it's jaw-dropping can be to the wrong person or in the wrong place it can be distancing it can make you go is this the only way to reach God is to create this level of beauty and he's up there on the ceiling or he's in that painting and that structure I can't access them I have to be quiet as I walk through it all I have to admire it I don't have a relationship with

it and and I certainly don't have a relationship personally with him and so what what my job is and what I'm experiencing myself and what you see in the show is uh is is is again what I talked about earlier Jesus reaching for you you might be reaching for him and think that you have to do this perfect thing and that's oftentimes what happens in the Old Testament it has to be perfect perfect perfect Jesus comes in and says you know what you're never it's it's never fully going to get there it's never going to

be perfect enough so I'll do it for you I will be that Perfection I will be that sacrifice I will I will be the perfect sacrifice that Cain couldn't come up with and so in doing that it makes it personal and human and so when Jesus is healing the woman who's been bleeding for 12 years or he's healing the the man who's been blind for so long or he's or he's saving Simon Peter from from uh from who is a Believer but who is focused on accomplishment and trying to catch as many fish as he

can so that he can pay his taxes and Jesus comes in and and calls him to something greater uh which is which is a fisher of men not Fisher of of fish and all that is happening on a personal level and it's causing people to respond gu that's partly why partly why it seemed to me that you handled the Miracles so well it's not that you downplay them it's that you it's a weird thing because you make them in some ways a a matter of logical course it's a weird thing to do with a miracle

but it's it's it's the inevitable result of the need it's yeah and the situation and that yeah exactly it's it's that well that's a strange thing to make the miracle appear to be of course the thing that would happen under those sit under those circumstances so my belief is that as we've seen you over you Jordan Peterson over the last several years come to grips with the the suffering you experien the physical suffering you experience that we you know when you kind of disappeared for a year and those of us who were fans are going

well how is he doing what's what and you came back out of that and described it and talked about it and your relationship with your wife and your daughter and all of the stories that we keep seeing on podcasts and it and you talk about a dream that you've had I mean all the things that we we've seen and and and people asking you questions do you believe Jesus actually walked out of the Tomb right all these it's it's it's watching I think people feel more connected to you than ever because they're seeing not only

these brilliant lectures that you've given and these books that you've written but now I'm seeing you cry because you're describing a dream that you've had and and and and and that makes me go oh now I want to hear even more and now some of the stuff that you're saying intellectually and broadly actually makes even more sense and I'm even more connected to it and I believe that's who God is you know I I I don't have the intellectual capability to do even some of the things you're doing in your gospel series for daily wire

um but I but I know I know that God created and Jesus rose and and those two things are enough for me they're not everything uh but it's enough for me to go if I know that and I believe that truly then that makes everything else makes sense and now I can see some of these mysterious things through a foundation that's secure and solid and that I still do believe even if I don't understand this story I do believe God created and I do believe Jesus rose from the dead and so my job as a

Storyteller and as a Herald is to make that palatable to the masses as much as possible so that they're not resistant to or denied the opportunity to explore because of things like propaganda or church hurt or or even their own religion sometimes our own religion can get in the way of a relationship a personal relationship with Jesus so I don't sit here writing going how am I going to accomplish this and I want to make sure that I'm sitting here just trying to tell a great story as much as well as I can and honor

God in the text but I think that's what's happening that's when people meet me and they start to cry and they thank me it's they're saying I saw Jesus wink or I saw Jesus look her in the eye or I saw Jesus come down to his level as opposed to staying here and it broke me because I realized it's for me too just not only for that person and so that's what this chosen is doing for many people is if you can see Jesus the eyes of those who actually met him perhaps you can be

changed and impacted in the same way they were or as is also in the case for many people who watch the show they love the historical drama it's a good show they they appreciate it 30 to 40% of our audience is non-believers we've we've been that's good to track that now that's good and we're hearing from people who go I don't believe he was the son of God yeah but I love this show and I'm intrigued and I'm following along and I find myself wanting to be a better person or I'm finding myself wanting to

whatever it is and so perhaps they don't ever bend the knee to to to the Son of God that I I believe he is but I'm not trying to I'm not trying to get you to do that when you watch the show that's God's job I'm gathering that is an excellent place to stop so and a good time to stop as well so I think what we'll probably do on the daily wire side for everybody who's watching and listening because we have another half an hour there I think we'll talk more about the chosen as

a cultural phenomenon and as a what an index an indicator of the time that we're in because everyone knows that the tectonic plates are moving at the deepest of all possible levels and we see that manifested in the culture war and in the strange political times that we're in but also in the what would you say in the sense that there is a transformation in the landscape of narrative that's reflected in part let's say in the evidence for something approximating a religious revival that's taking place in not only North America but in Europe in the

west more broadly so we'll investigate that and then let me give you one other note yeah the next show that I'm planning to do after the chosen currently is the Moses Story three seasons of Moses oh oh oh and some fans are saying oh we wish you would go into the book of Acts next because that's a continuation of the story right and I'm going actually we need to pause for a moment take you back to to to The Exodus and to Moses because Moses was the I mean Jesus is the new Moses Moses turned

the water to blood Jes yeah and so we're gonna we're gonna because we reference Moses a lot in the show yeah in fact season five which is coming soon is the celebration of Passover and so while I'm filming the Last Supper what are they doing at the Last Supper well they're remembering and honoring their Heritage of of The Exodus and so it's very fascinating so I don't know if if if there was a part of you that wanted to you know you you've got two Exodus and the gospels yeah and so I you're doing them

in the opposite order that we did them in at the daily wire correct but I'm also recognizing their cohesiveness so if you wanted to to touch touch on that I'm I'm willing to do that as well yeah yeah that sounds like a fine idea we'll do that as well so join us on the daily wire side for the continuation of the story yeah great talking to you and it's so fun to be here in cai's house how how Preposterous uh having this conversation and I'm very much looking forward to uh to the new season and

for those of you who are watching and listening who haven't um seen the chosen uh watch an episode or two and see what you think I really enjoyed it and so did my wife and uh I would say we're very picky about such things especially if they have intent you know and there was a marked absence of painful intent in the chosen it's very gripping and very well done and dramatically watching and I was pleased to continue watching yes exactly so thank you sir thank you for all to all of you for your time and

attention today as well and to the Daily wire for making this possible [Music]