Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 31, 2026


REPLAY ｜ Is 'The Chosen' Biblical？ ｜ Guest： Dallas Jenkins ｜ Ep 726

Ep 1415 ｜ Aliens, Mermaids, and Werewolves： When “Christian” Teaching Becomes Occult Mythology

Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

189.51

Word count

8,607

Sentence count

280

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.640 The Chosen is a wildly popular show about the life of Jesus Christ.
00:00:06.340 It's received a lot of praise as well as its fair share of criticism.
00:00:11.120 And here to discuss all of those things is the creator of the show, Dallas Jenkins.
00:00:15.720 We will talk about his life, his story, what led him to create The Chosen.
00:00:20.880 And we will also talk about some of the pushback that the show has received, including the
00:00:26.940 controversy surrounding his comments about Mormonism and Jesus. It's a great conversation.
00:00:33.640 I know that you're going to love it.
00:00:45.520 Dallas, thanks so much for joining us.
00:00:48.220 I appreciate you having me. This is great.
00:00:50.000 Yes. So many people out there love The Chosen. A lot of people have questions for you
00:00:54.380 about The Chosen. Let's first back up before even you started this series. I know a lot of people
00:01:02.220 probably know your story, but if you could just give us a little summary of how you got into the
00:01:06.480 Christian media biz. Well, my father is Jerry Jenkins. He wrote the Left Behind books. And so
00:01:13.300 those were huge. They're still pretty big, but back in the day, about 25 years ago, they were
00:01:18.020 pretty huge. And there was a movie being developed based on the first Left Behind book when I was in
00:01:25.160 college. And I had been wanting to get into film in some way. I mean, I remember seeing the movie
00:01:32.460 One Flew the Cuckoo's Nest when I was in high school. And that movie changed my life. I was
00:01:36.680 like, whatever that is, I want to do that. What was it about that movie? Well, there was a scene,
00:01:42.260 I was watching it in my home. It was on TV. And there's a scene where Jack Nicholson's character
00:01:47.580 is not allowed to watch tv he wanted to watch the world series game and nurse ratchet says you can't
00:01:52.640 watch it so he goes and sits in front of a television and pretends he starts broadcasting
00:01:57.900 a fake world series game and the other inmates start listening to him and getting excited and
00:02:03.680 he starts yelling and talking about this the home run just hit and he's like a broadcaster
00:02:09.200 and they start cheering and i'm literally just sitting there there's like tears streaming down
00:02:13.640 my face and i am so excited and i'm like i want to do that i want to yeah inspire in people the
00:02:20.100 kind of reaction that i'm having that's kind of emotional response to something and so that's when
00:02:23.680 i was like i and what's funny is i think at the time i was wanting to be a sports broadcaster
00:02:27.700 so that i think that had something to do with it too the scene so i wanted to make movies and uh
00:02:34.380 so uh my thought was what as a as a young guy growing up i i grew up i grew up in the faith
00:02:43.020 and as a christian but i love tv and movies but there wasn't anything that represented my faith
00:02:49.380 that i liked as much as the normal tv and movies that i would watch like all the yeah if there was
00:02:54.860 a christian movie that came out it wasn't any good uh so i didn't know what kind of movies i
00:03:00.840 necessarily wanted to make but i knew i wanted to get into that in some way and i thought it'd be
00:03:04.240 good to represent my stories in some way stories of faith and i remember there was a moment um in
00:03:11.100 i think it was around 20 2007 or so i was mowing the lawn and uh i felt like god just like put it
00:03:20.280 really strongly on my heart uh because i was kind of bad-mouthing slash apologizing for faith-based
00:03:26.800 films like i don't really want to do that because they're so bad and god was like my people deserve
00:03:30.840 good stuff too you know so uh why don't you just make it better if and so just talking about how
00:03:37.180 bad it is yeah exactly and so um or or instead of i think sometimes we get into this perspective of
00:03:43.820 trying to be cool yeah you know like well i don't want to be like even when you use the term
00:03:49.020 christian media i was like my instinct was like well i wouldn't call it christian media just do
00:03:53.340 media and happens to have faith in it and sometimes i get you get defensive of that and i'm i'm trying
00:03:58.020 to get rid of that and just go look i'm look i'm doing a show called the chosen it's about jesus
00:04:03.180 by definition that's christian so i'm i got more comfortable with it but long story short i i just
00:04:09.520 really i think uh it was about 15 years ago where i thought look i i have something i think unique
00:04:16.620 to say uh that most filmmakers are looking for something unique to say and even studios are
00:04:25.200 looking for filmmakers who have unique things to say and uh i thought if i'm just trying to be a
00:04:31.120 normal filmmaker uh you know there's many people who can do that what is it that i what is unique
00:04:39.500 about what i have to say or what i can bring to the table or what god may want me to share
00:04:43.440 and so i i embraced that i became okay with that with with with all right i want to tell stories
00:04:49.440 that reflect god god and yeah and uh and that that's that's when i shifted probably again about
00:04:56.260 15 years ago to start really focusing on stories that were uniquely about the relationship God
00:05:04.180 wants to have with humanity. It is interesting that a lot of Christians, I mean, myself included
00:05:09.980 sometimes, on the one hand, you complain about secular media and the values that it's promoting
00:05:14.960 and how it's promoting degeneracy and all of that. But at the same time, then you complain about the
00:05:20.480 Christian media or however you want to describe it. It might be promoting the values that you
00:05:25.660 like, but it's not entertaining, or you think it's lame, or the acting is bad, or something
00:05:29.660 like that.
00:05:30.340 And so you kind of decided, you know what?
00:05:32.440 I'm not going to sit in either camp.
00:05:34.120 God has given me these talents.
00:05:35.720 I'm going to drive forward to make good and excellent content that also happens to be
00:05:40.760 glorifying to the Lord.
00:05:42.260 Yeah, and not be ashamed of that on any level.
00:05:45.120 And I found that people that rejected stories of faith were rejecting more the quality than
00:05:54.160 they were necessarily the story. There are plenty of people who aren't believers who will watch a
00:06:02.560 movie or TV show that comes from a faith perspective or is about a faith story if it's
00:06:08.520 compelling. I mean, I watched tons of stuff that comes from faith backgrounds or non-faith
00:06:13.500 backgrounds that I don't necessarily share, but I still am interested in the story. Sure. And that
00:06:19.140 we found that with The Chosen. I mean, there are tons of, I mean, heck, over half of our cast and
00:06:23.380 crew aren't believers and they love the show. They were attracted to be part of the show.
00:06:29.040 We have tons of viewers who aren't, who don't necessarily believe Jesus was the son of God,
00:06:34.840 but know the stories and love the historical context of it and love the show because they
00:06:39.020 think it's a compelling show. So I just decided, look, trying to water it down, trying to please
00:06:45.120 multiple audiences, like God took all of that away from me a few years ago when I had a huge
00:06:48.980 career failure. So I've kind of let all that go and just decided to focus on just trying to tell
00:06:54.220 the best story that I can. Yeah, you've directed several films, but The Chosen is different. The
00:06:59.500 Chosen, like you said, is different in that it's not just appealing to faith-based audiences,
00:07:05.580 even though it is a faith-based show, but its reach is really wide. Were you at all surprised
00:07:11.560 by that when you saw the huge response that it got, even from the beginning back in, you know,
00:07:17.040 I think it was 2017 that it started, right?
00:07:20.260 I mean, was that a little surprising to you?
00:07:23.780 I have stopped being surprised or not surprised by success or failure.
00:07:31.120 You know, it was in 2017 that my feature film came out that completely bombed at the box office.
00:07:37.220 And it had big expectations and I had big expectations and hopes and I was trying to be affirmed by Hollywood.
00:07:44.040 It was my big opportunity to have a movie that came out in multiple theaters.
00:07:49.660 And then when it bombed, I had this moment.
00:07:54.520 I was home alone with my wife, crying and shocked.
00:07:58.720 And just in just a couple hours, I went from being a director with a very bright future to being a director with no future.
00:08:03.260 Because all these big Hollywood studios that had worked with me on this movie, when it bombed, they were like, all right, all our plans to do more movies with you, those are no longer in effect.
00:08:12.740 you know again so when you say it bombed it just not enough people saw it in the first weekend
00:08:16.860 it was you know below estimates below their lowest estimates yes okay and uh the movie had
00:08:23.240 gotten it was a movie called the resurrection of gavin stone and uh it had tested really well and
00:08:28.560 the studios behind it were really positive and and these are some pretty big hollywood companies
00:08:33.260 and uh because it had tested so well and they were so optimistic about it they were like we're
00:08:38.400 going to do multiple movies with you yeah in the future and then you're feeling really good oh yeah
00:08:42.920 and uh and then on friday afternoon the numbers start coming in from the east coast yeah and
00:08:49.000 within a couple hours you it's a math equation you can tell how the movie's going to do that
00:08:53.300 weekend how it's going to do like election night or something yes exactly yeah and uh it just
00:08:58.240 totally failed and that must have been just such a difficult feeling to go through not only did you
00:09:05.620 put all that effort in, but you have voices in your head telling you, I mean, literal voices,
00:09:09.800 people saying this is going to be a huge success and will really be kind of the springboard for
00:09:14.420 you. I can't imagine the disappointment. I was, yeah, I mean, I was devastated. And my wife and
00:09:19.240 I were home alone. It was a Friday afternoon and just so confused because the things that had
00:09:26.000 happened to lead up to that point had felt so God led, like there were so many doors that had
00:09:30.460 opened surprisingly. And again, getting some of these big companies that normally would never do
00:09:35.980 a faith-based project, but really were interested in it and excited about it. And then it totally
00:09:40.340 bombs. And you're thinking, well, this doesn't make sense because God's not the author of failure.
00:09:46.420 So clearly, I guess I was wrong. He wasn't behind this. I thought he was behind this,
00:09:49.860 but I guess he wasn't. And when I was home alone with my wife, there was this moment where we were
00:09:56.460 in different rooms and she came into the kitchen where I was getting something to eat. And she
00:10:00.440 says i feel like god is placing on my heart really clearly like as clearly as if he was saying it out
00:10:06.920 loud read the story of the feeding of the 5 000 in the bible when when jesus was had been preaching
00:10:12.700 for several days and the crowd was starving and and a boy brings five loaves and two fish and he
00:10:18.180 multiplies the loaves and fish and feeds 5 000 people and so we didn't know why we were supposed
00:10:23.680 to read that story and what it meant but so we're reading it and trying to glean something from it
00:10:27.240 And one thing we noticed was that the reason that the people were so hungry was Jesus's fault.
00:10:33.000 He's the one who'd been talking for so long.
00:10:34.620 He brought them to that place of hunger where the only thing left to satisfy it was a miracle.
00:10:40.280 So we thought, oh, OK, maybe God is behind this and he's bringing us to this place of desperation.
00:10:47.040 And now a miracle is coming.
00:10:48.440 You know, maybe the box office numbers will magically turn around this weekend and we're going to be able to have this great story to tell.
00:10:54.200 And that didn't happen.
00:10:55.020 in fact that night the numbers got even a little worse it was almost like god was saying that's
00:10:59.580 not the lesson that i have for you in the story but we didn't know we were just trying to figure
00:11:02.960 out what is it that we're trying to learn you know that we need to learn from this and um that night
00:11:08.160 at uh four o'clock in the morning i'm on i'm writing a memo a 15 page memo about everything
00:11:14.940 that went wrong and what i need to learn from it and what the mistakes i made and why this was my
00:11:20.140 fault and trying to solve the issue so that this doesn't happen again. And just a message pops up
00:11:25.360 on my computer through Facebook from someone I've never met, just a Facebook friend. Didn't even say
00:11:31.140 hi. All he said was, remember, it's not your job to feed the 5,000. It's only to provide the loaves
00:11:36.120 and fish. Wow. Like just, and I'm like, I typed back, I'm like, what are you doing up at four in
00:11:42.060 the morning? That was my first question. And he's like, well, I'm on the other side of the world.
00:11:45.000 I'm in Romania. I'm visiting my brother. I said, do you mind me asking why you said that?
00:11:50.300 And he goes, oh, that wasn't me. God told me to tell that to you. And in that moment,
00:11:56.100 my life changed because A, I felt more than ever like God was present and in this and watching
00:12:04.260 and had my interests in mind. And I felt more cared for in that moment than ever because it
00:12:14.100 It was like he was saying, yeah, this movie failed, but I've got something for you in
00:12:18.560 it.
00:12:19.580 And then also that concept, this is the answer to your question.
00:12:22.800 I know it's a long way to get to it, but you're asking if I was surprised.
00:12:28.200 In that moment, in my early 40s, for the first time in my life, I stopped caring about the
00:12:35.580 results for the first time.
00:12:37.660 I was someone who felt responsible for results.
00:12:39.700 I felt responsible for success or failure, even if it was something that was God breathed or God inspired.
00:12:47.640 And and so for the first time I was like, OK, all right, I'm going to get on this plan of the five loaves and two fish that I provide need to be good and healthy so that if God chooses to multiply them, they can feed people.
00:13:01.580 But if not, that's up to him. The results aren't up to me anymore.
00:13:05.260 the uh the success or failure isn't up to me how it's used or not used is not up to me when i
00:13:11.740 present my five loaves and two fish to god and he deems them worthy the transaction's over and i i
00:13:18.120 really embrace that and it became a superpower in many ways i stopped thinking about goals and
00:13:24.400 trying to achieve and numbers and success and i just literally focused on what's in front of me
00:13:31.200 and what can i do and if i if i'm in god's will if i feel like what i'm doing is is is right and
00:13:37.060 what he wants and that's that's all i'm focused on and so am i surprised that the show ended up
00:13:43.220 blowing up based on a short film that i did for my church like it was several months later after
00:13:48.520 my big failure i had this script for a short film about the birth of christ and perspective of the
00:13:52.940 shepherds that i had written and put on the shelf because i was doing this big movie and i said to
00:13:59.360 my church do we want to do this and they said yes that's when I got the idea for the show for the
00:14:03.640 show and uh but I didn't think the show was going to get made because you know there's not people
00:14:09.140 lining up around the block to do a Jesus show and I was coming off of a career failure so uh this
00:14:14.400 short film ended up going out on social media crowdfunded 10 million dollars for season one
00:14:19.400 of The Chosen it shattered the all-time crowdfunding record all these things I thought were ridiculous
00:14:23.100 yeah but I was on the loaves and fishes plan right so I'm like you know what it's not my job
00:14:27.640 to worry about that so i'm not surprised because god can do anything but i wouldn't have been
00:14:33.880 surprised if it would have failed as well for whatever you want to consider failure but if
00:14:38.480 nothing would have happened from the chosen i wouldn't have been surprised by that either
00:14:41.180 so i'm just on this i'm just making loaves and fish the blank the blank screen for season four
00:14:47.620 the scripts that i'm writing now doesn't care about how successful the show has been i still
00:14:51.760 have to try to write a show that is good and honoring yeah and so again i know that's a
00:14:56.700 really long answer to your question. That's good. There's a lot of good lessons in there. It's funny
00:15:00.140 because my dad tells me the same thing. Because just like in any work that someone does, that a 0.86
00:15:05.800 Christian does, there are times that you feel like, is it really making an impact? Am I really 0.95
00:15:10.000 doing the right thing? Or I messed up in saying that, and that wasn't exactly what I wanted to
00:15:14.400 say, or maybe I'm not having the effect that I want. And my dad always just says, fishes and
00:15:18.700 loaves. Oh, really? Yes. That's the same thing that my dad tells me. Even though that passage
00:15:23.660 of scripture is historically true it's not primarily a metaphor the principle is there
00:15:28.760 the principle is there is that god is going to multiply how he wants to multiply and as you said
00:15:35.140 the point is not the result the point is the obedience the point is that god is going to get
00:15:42.260 glory through our obedience whether it ends in what we call failure or what we call success
00:15:48.220 so i'm appreciative of your of your long answer there's a lot of good lessons in that yeah and
00:15:53.080 And the thing is, it would have been ridiculous for the boy who provided the loaves and fish to go home to his parents and say, I fed 5,000 people today.
00:16:01.120 Right.
00:16:01.640 Isn't that amazing?
00:16:02.580 Of course not. 0.98
00:16:03.240 That's ridiculous. 0.90
00:16:04.900 And that's how I talk about The Chosen. 0.93
00:16:06.640 People are like, wow, are you proud of what The Chosen has done?
00:16:10.440 I'm like, I'm not responsible for 100 million people around the world watching this show.
00:16:15.140 I feel like my loaves and fish are pretty good, and I'm proud of that.
00:16:19.080 But the multiplication is really not up to me.
00:16:21.780 And so, yeah, that metaphor.
00:16:24.820 What's interesting about the story, too, is that God could have just could have just multiplied fish and loaves from scratch.
00:16:32.840 Like he could have just waved his hand and all that fish and loaves could have just come from nothing.
00:16:36.960 But he does want us to participate.
00:16:39.720 He does use us.
00:16:40.460 And then when it came time to distribute it, he had the disciples go hand out all the loaves and fish.
00:16:45.440 I mean, he does all the things that we don't need him to do.
00:16:49.240 He wants us to do.
00:16:50.900 And that's something really we see throughout scripture that I've noticed that God is a God of processes.
00:16:56.100 He could really do anything automatically.
00:16:58.560 He didn't need, you know, Israel to wander through the wilderness for 40 years. 0.51
00:17:04.840 He could have just said, here's the promised land. 0.84
00:17:06.820 I got those enemies out.
00:17:08.060 You're good to go.
00:17:08.880 And yet we constantly see him sanctifying and bringing them through challenges and really putting them in a position to where they have to depend on him.
00:17:18.500 And we just have to believe that all of that, all of those processes are for God's glory, even when we don't see it.
00:17:25.460 Like the parting of the Red Sea.
00:17:27.480 He still said, I need you to strike your staff on the rock.
00:17:30.720 Like there's always something that he asks us to do to kind of unlock this, what's bigger.
00:17:37.140 It's a fascinating process.
00:17:38.100 Yeah.
00:17:38.400 And it's not that he needs our effort.
00:17:39.840 Right.
00:17:40.140 Of course not.
00:17:40.820 It's just that somehow he gets glory out of it.
00:17:44.440 I imagine that it is a huge undertaking, and you kind of just mentioned this when you're thinking, okay, you're not responsible for the millions of people watching this, but I still imagine as you are trying to create a series, The Chosen, that reflects the life of Christ, that is as biblically and historically, culturally accurate as possible, while still having to take creative license, for example, like Matthew, you depict him as someone who's on the spectrum.
00:18:10.260 We don't see that in the Bible.
00:18:12.580 And so how do you approach that huge task of trying to stay as accurate and grounded
00:18:19.240 as possible while also being creative and creating a series that people really want
00:18:24.460 to watch?
00:18:25.220 Yeah.
00:18:25.480 Well, what's interesting is I would say probably 95% of the content of the show isn't
00:18:30.720 directly from scripture.
00:18:31.920 People call it a Bible show. 0.91
00:18:33.440 They'll call it a Jesus show. 0.70
00:18:34.780 And I'm okay with that, but I'll say this is actually, I mean, the Bible is for sure
00:18:39.400 the primary source of truth and inspiration for the show, but there's a ton of content that isn't
00:18:43.900 actually directly from Scripture. So to your question, it's a dangerous proposition. You're
00:18:49.080 walking a fine line, especially as someone like myself who loves the Bible, and I know that people
00:18:53.260 who watch it, the majority of people who watch it, are going to be wanting us to remain faithful to
00:18:57.680 the Scriptures as much as possible. We operate from this question, is this plausible? Whatever
00:19:04.740 we write that it didn't come from scripture is this plausible culturally historically and does
00:19:11.260 it fit within the character and intentions of jesus in the gospels even if it's not directly
00:19:16.800 from them or even if we don't know if it's fact or not so for example matthew being on the spectrum
00:19:21.700 uh is that plausible i think so why well we this is this is a good uh example of how we approach
00:19:29.300 the show in general we start with what we know from scripture so we know that matthew was a tax
00:19:33.700 collector. That means he was a numbers guy. We know he's a facts guy. The first chapter of his
00:19:41.040 book is a genealogy divided into three sections of 14 names apiece. We know that he chose a
00:19:47.700 profession that made him an outcast, hated by the Jews for betraying his people by being a tax 0.57
00:19:53.060 collector and working for the Romans, disrespected by the Romans for being Jewish. All of these 0.74
00:19:58.180 things, we're writing them down on a big piece of paper as we're formulating the character of
00:20:03.100 matthew and i'm someone who's very familiar with the autism world i have autism in my family i've
00:20:08.160 done a lot of work in the special needs community so i know autism very very closely and uh i'm like
00:20:13.340 these are these are traits of asperger's these are traits of you know numbers facts uh socially
00:20:18.960 outcast but maybe comfortable with that because maybe you prefer to be a little bit uh alone
00:20:25.120 and we thought what if what if matthew what if we could have what if we could portray him as being
00:20:30.180 on the spectrum think of how human that is think of how relatable that could be for people
00:20:35.220 um taking the stories from 2 000 years ago and actually putting them in to a modern context for
00:20:41.900 the viewer could be really powerful and relatable now doing something just to be relatable that
00:20:48.560 could be a problem we're not trying to take the gospel all right we're going to change it we're
00:20:52.000 going to make it more we're going to we're going to water it down so people get it we're going to
00:20:55.660 do something we're going to try to have more diversity just to be politically correct just
00:20:59.100 try to appeal as many people as possible, that would be a problem. But this is plausible. If
00:21:04.280 it's plausible and it happens to allow the viewer to connect even more deeply to the people and see
00:21:11.960 Jesus through the eyes of people who actually followed him, that can be really impactful.
00:21:16.000 So that's how we approach all of these stories that you see in the show. Some come directly from
00:21:20.340 scripture, some come from our imagination, but I think all of it comes through this filter of
00:21:25.700 plausibility based on a desire to be faithful to the scriptures and to the character and
00:21:33.100 intentions of jesus and the gospels it's not easy it's on dangerous ground we get we get a lot of
00:21:39.280 criticism obviously from people who don't want to see anything that's not from scripture but uh
00:21:43.520 but we do believe that it's a it's a we're not the bible we're not pretending to be the bible
00:21:48.320 we're not a replacement for scripture we never claim to be we're not adding to scripture because
00:21:53.060 Scripture is scripture. That's the Bible. Your Bible hasn't changed since The Chosen came out.
00:21:57.820 We're not adding to it. This is a show about first century Galilee using the Bible as our 0.76
00:22:02.080 primary source. As your guide. Right. Has there been any criticism? With every popular project,
00:22:07.460 there's going to be criticism. It's just inevitable. Has there been any criticism that
00:22:11.600 has made you go, hmm, actually, that might be a good point, or has caused you to either change
00:22:19.060 direction, or at least, I don't know, think a little bit more deeply about a choice that the
00:22:23.860 series made? I would say not a lot. And here's why. Not because I'm arrogant and don't accept
00:22:30.540 criticism. It's because we do so much of that work on the front end. So when we do something
00:22:36.220 in the show that someone is bothered by, sometimes they'll even say, boy, you need to change that,
00:22:44.860 Or why aren't you apologizing for that?
00:22:46.400 We're offended, you know.
00:22:47.620 And I'll say, we thought through all this deeply on the front end.
00:22:51.700 I mean, I have Bible consultants that I work with.
00:22:55.220 I go through a lot of research, a lot of prayer, a lot of—we take this very, very seriously.
00:23:00.840 So by the time we've released the show, it's very unlikely that someone's going to point out something that we haven't thought of and considered.
00:23:09.040 Now, there's been stuff that we missed, whether it's some sort of cultural fact, some historical fact that maybe we got wrong inadvertently or maybe slipped through the cracks.
00:23:20.260 But when it comes to our biblical approach or our approach to theology and whatnot, it's unlikely that a YouTube comment is going to suddenly settle 2,000 years of debate about the theology of God versus man.
00:23:34.940 And, you know, the most controversial thing that we that we've done to date was there was about 10 seconds of Jesus.
00:23:41.440 He was preparing for the big sermon on the mount and he's kind of working out some of the things in his head of what he wants to say.
00:23:47.540 And he's working on the turn of phrase.
00:23:49.760 It's kind of like it's like sermon prep.
00:23:51.180 And there were some people who just were so offended that God, Jesus, would ever need to prepare or that he would struggle to come up with the right words or anything like that.
00:24:00.160 And I understand what they're saying.
00:24:03.460 um but they would be like jesus is god he would never never struggle you know uh to think of
00:24:09.900 anything and then you look at a verse like in philippians where it says that jesus did not
00:24:15.240 account jesus did not count equality with god as something to be grasped but he actually gave up
00:24:19.500 a lot of his the things that he has when he's sitting at the right hand of the father
00:24:23.920 he didn't have when he was on earth and so there's a spectrum of of yeah of what jesus may have known
00:24:30.260 or not known how god was he how man was he you know there's a term called the hypostatic union
00:24:35.900 where he was both fully god and fully man well this has been debated and discussed for thousands
00:24:40.500 of years it's it's vexed scholars the world over people who love the bible can disagree on this
00:24:47.000 issue and yet a youtube commenter can say no i know it and you're wrong and i'm going to settle
00:24:53.140 this debate so i'm using that as an example of of the kind of thing where the decision to do that
00:24:58.920 on my part, was made and thought through deeply before we brought it to the world. So their
00:25:04.940 comment isn't going to necessarily make me go, oh, I never thought of that. Let me change my mind.
00:25:09.340 Right. And you're not claiming that those things are not debatable. And so because, as you said,
00:25:15.380 I mean, Jesus is fully God and fully man. A lot of those things of how that manifested itself,
00:25:20.140 what weaknesses he did have, as far as even just the weakness of hunger or the weakness of thirst,
00:25:26.680 like how much did that really have an effect on his life and on his mind and so i think it just
00:25:32.820 goes back to kind of what you were saying that is it plausible not is it in scripture or is it yeah
00:25:38.020 and i even said i'm not willing to say that our portrayal in that moment was fact i don't know
00:25:43.740 that but neither do you so let's explore together you shouldn't be relying on me or the show for
00:25:49.440 your entire theology theological interpretation of who god is you should be in a good church you
00:25:54.220 should be reading the scriptures that's where this show is a supplement this show is a is a
00:25:59.280 is like as you just mentioned it's it's what we believe a plausible attempt to capture the people
00:26:05.320 of first century galilee but i think it's i think it's good healthy discussions yeah i would have
00:26:10.360 thought that you would say that the most controversial thing or the thing that caused
00:26:14.080 the most criticism was when jesus said i am the law of moses and people interpreted that as quoting
00:26:21.580 the book of mormon which i know that you've already answered this it was not a direct quote
00:26:26.040 from the book of mormon not also a direct quote from scripture so i would have thought that that
00:26:31.440 was the thing that caused the most well i would say you're right that that became uh one of the
00:26:38.600 most controversial things uh yeah because so there's a moment in episode three one of the
00:26:43.780 pharisees is really upset with jesus for claiming to be the messiah in his own hometown and they're
00:26:51.020 saying you're a false prophet and because you're a false prophet we have no choice but to follow
00:26:57.560 the law of moses which of course says you put to death false prophets and jesus steps up to him
00:27:02.860 and says i am the law of moses and yes their their rumor got spread that that's a quote from
00:27:09.140 the book of mormon i've never actually read the book of mormon uh so i i you know even if it had
00:27:15.100 been a quote i wouldn't have known it and it's not even a direct quote anyway the quote i think
00:27:18.500 from the book of mormon is like i am the law i am the law and the light yeah yeah so all that to
00:27:23.860 say um yes that there were some major criticism and controversy came about from that quote
00:27:29.680 and uh what's what's interesting about it is that i think sometimes people make assumptions
00:27:35.120 even about what you mean from something so for example jesus in that scene i do believe it's
00:27:43.260 plausible for him to claim i'm the law of moses uh many many people many scholars would would
00:27:48.600 consider jesus to be the living breathing torah the living word as they say um that that he were
00:27:54.540 that even though he has fulfilled the law that doesn't mean the law is done and of course we
00:27:59.880 believe he and the father co-authored the law so all of those things are again theological
00:28:03.700 discussions worthy of of debate that said what he is doing in that moment is he is asserting
00:28:10.780 authority so the pharisee is saying the law of moses is our authority and he's going i'm i'm
00:28:17.240 your authority yeah so it's like if someone comes to the let's say a big authority figure comes to
00:28:22.420 someone's house and and uh and and the person living in the house says hey i'm you know what
00:28:27.740 i'm going to call the police and the person goes well i am the police now that doesn't necessarily
00:28:31.660 mean they're literally a police officer but they're saying i'm the authority whatever you
00:28:35.360 see is your authority that's me that's what jesus is asserting in that scene and in the context of
00:28:40.000 the full scene which you can see in episode three is it's probably the most blatant declaration in
00:28:45.060 the whole show of jesus as god jesus as son of god jesus as the savior yeah so a lot of what i
00:28:51.500 kind of chuckled to myself going a lot of the critics of this moment are actually if they saw
00:28:55.560 the whole scene are seeing it's probably the most blatant depiction of jesus as the authority that
00:29:00.740 will ever show so but you bring up a great example which is that when we're doing 56 episodes of this
00:29:07.160 show, that's going to be about 50 hours of television, portraying Jesus, the most famous
00:29:12.100 and influential man in history. There's going to be moments that everyone has a disagreement with.
00:29:18.320 Even as someone like myself who loves God's word, the most staunch practicing evangelical
00:29:23.780 will at some point in this show see something that they don't fully agree with. The hope is
00:29:29.720 that you have a little bit of grace and go, you know what, there's things on which we can disagree.
00:29:32.860 It doesn't mean that you're a heretic.
00:29:34.540 It doesn't mean that you're trying to lead people away from the authentic Jesus.
00:29:38.820 It means that there's a lot of things that we don't fully know and understand.
00:29:43.080 Let's wrestle with them.
00:29:44.780 The number one question that I got from my audience, as you can probably guess, was about
00:29:50.100 Mormonism and about some comments that you made.
00:29:53.300 You clarified those comments.
00:29:54.720 You said, you know, there are some LDS people that I know.
00:29:58.180 We love the same Jesus.
00:30:00.320 And then you kind of clarified that to say not that LDS and evangelical Christians have the same theology, but that the ones you know love the same Jesus.
00:30:10.740 I mean, as you know, some people have a problem with that.
00:30:13.140 Mormonism does not believe that Jesus is God, believes that Jesus is a son of God and became like God, was actually a brother of Satan.
00:30:20.800 So it's not the same Jesus.
00:30:23.660 It's not the same God at all.
00:30:25.200 And the differences are extremely fundamental, I would say, much more than, you know, Catholicism or things like that.
00:30:32.380 And so, you know, some people were a little concerned about that.
00:30:37.780 Well, out of context, you take the phrase that I said where I said, we love the same Jesus.
00:30:42.960 And they said, OK, Dallas is saying that all Mormons, all LDS folks love the same Jesus as evangelicals.
00:30:49.680 Now, I'm not going to speak for the LDS church.
00:30:52.440 But what I was saying, and I think my wording was sloppy.
00:30:56.940 I think that I could have clarified a little bit better.
00:30:59.020 I do have some LDS friends.
00:31:01.180 I have LDS friends who I would say don't necessarily love the same Jesus that I do.
00:31:05.560 I do have some that I have spent hundreds of hours with.
00:31:11.680 I have prayed with.
00:31:12.880 I have wept with.
00:31:13.900 I have gone to Israel with.
00:31:15.820 I have spent hundreds of hours of talking.
00:31:18.580 and i would say that those friends of mine that i know that i've spent tons of time with when we're
00:31:25.460 talking particularly about jesus of nazareth particularly the jesus of the gospels it is the
00:31:30.220 same jesus they they love that like the the the show that like the jesus that i'm portraying in
00:31:36.260 the show the jesus that we read about in the scriptures um i firmly believe that and i you
00:31:42.980 know in my deep conversations with them that that we're when we're talking about jesus of nazareth
00:31:47.460 we're talking about the same one now but they may have john one that the word was god that is not
00:31:54.540 what mormons believe well that may not be the official statement of the lds church but i would
00:32:00.660 say that i know some lds folks who would say i believe in john john chapter one now that may put
00:32:05.760 them in misalignment with their church i don't know i don't get into the details of of whether
00:32:10.660 or not what what their church thinks of it i'm just saying i have you know i've literally asked
00:32:15.780 those very questions to some of my friends and i've gone well what do you think of john chapter
00:32:19.200 one i am in the beginning was the word the word was god and the word was with god they go i believe
00:32:24.240 that i go well it seems to contradict this piece and they go well that piece might might have been
00:32:28.360 misinterpreted by some people so i'm just saying i i'm not i'm not i'm not disagreeing with you i
00:32:32.860 would say if you said to me does the lds church as a whole and does the evangelical world as a whole
00:32:39.680 share the same fundamental theological beliefs about jesus i would say no but i would say even
00:32:45.320 within the evangelical world there are evangelicals who i would say don't necessarily know
00:32:49.540 jesus as the bible is portraying because as as bible is is is contending because i just don't
00:32:57.400 believe in uh broad broadly stating about any one people group this is what they all believe
00:33:05.000 and this is what they all know i wouldn't say that about any particular people group i've
00:33:09.600 i've known even i've sat next to evangelicals and churches who i would say yeah we're going
00:33:14.700 to the same church, but we don't necessarily understand or believe the same things. So I'm,
00:33:20.100 I'm acknowledging that in the, in the interview that I did several years ago, that my wording
00:33:26.020 could have been sloppy. So I wanted to make sure it didn't sound like I'm speaking for an entire
00:33:29.780 people group or speaking about an entire people group. I would just say that there are, I think
00:33:34.500 all of us, I think you've, I think all of us have experienced this. If you're, if you're a
00:33:38.520 conservative, if you're a Christian, if you're an evangelical, if you're a Catholic, we've all
00:33:42.000 experienced being painted with a broad brush based on the the the name of our tribe that we're in
00:33:50.780 and i've i've seen it happen multiple times that because i'm part of a particular label that there's
00:33:59.060 an assumption made about that i must accept or believe everything about that's typically
00:34:04.860 associated with that label i would say that there's oftentimes exceptions and and and i would say that
00:34:12.000 there can be exceptions in this case. And again, I'm not saying that we all agree with the same
00:34:18.760 thing and that we all have the same beliefs about everything. But I would say that I was speaking
00:34:24.100 about specific people in that case. Yeah. And I would just encourage people, go back and listen
00:34:28.920 to, we talked to a woman who spent 30 years in the Mormon church and then became a Christian. And
00:34:34.720 it's not saying that everyone with a label believes the same things, but it is looking
00:34:40.380 at particular doctrines and just making sure that people know uh the true gospel what is a works
00:34:45.720 based religion um versus what is by grace through faith and that is what christianity is founded
00:34:51.840 upon um okay let me say one more if you don't mind one more clarifier too i have spoken with
00:34:57.760 i would say it's a conservative estimate to say dozens like personal conversations with dozens
00:35:05.460 of people from the lds faith who have said to me because of the chosen i am finding myself
00:35:12.800 closer to the to jesus and closer to grace than i ever have in my entire life that i am finding
00:35:20.640 myself falling more in love with jesus than the church and that to me um and that would be a big
00:35:27.780 shift for mormons who really see church the lds church as the authority so that's no i mean i know
00:35:33.720 i know people who for whom their church lds or catholic or any any kind of formal religion is
00:35:41.600 in many almost like god is almost like the thing that they worship the thing that is their
00:35:46.800 connection to god and as an evangelical i passionately believe that you don't need
00:35:52.520 anything formal or anything to to connect you to god that you can have a direct relationship with
00:35:58.260 jesus and i have talked to dozens personally myself and heard from hundreds online or even
00:36:06.640 thousands of people who've said i am finding myself loving jesus more and finding a personal
00:36:13.280 relationship with jesus more so than my church more so than anything formal anything uh any any
00:36:21.700 person or thing as a connection that i'm i'm actually giving direct access to jesus because
00:36:27.100 of this. And so even if by some chance I disagree with a viewer about someone else's faith, I can
00:36:34.200 tell you that the chosen itself, the content of the chosen itself, I'm responsible for. It's not
00:36:40.400 influenced by any religion. It's not influenced by any church, any person. It comes from a personal
00:36:45.820 belief in Jesus as the son of God, as the ultimate authority, as God. And if that can actually have
00:36:52.660 an influence and an impact on people who maybe have in the past not been able to have a personal
00:36:59.820 relationship because of whether it's a lack of faith or sometimes it's because of the idolatry
00:37:04.680 of their own church the idolatry of of their own habits the idolatry of of their own vices
00:37:11.600 but you can actually get past all of that yeah and i just want my listeners and my viewers to know
00:37:17.100 to make clear that Mormonism is not a denomination of Christianity, that there are fundamental
00:37:22.700 differences. But the reason why I am not concerned with some people say, well, I know there are
00:37:30.460 Mormons who work with the company that distribute. The reason why that doesn't, to me, mean that
00:37:37.320 someone should not watch The Chosen is because from what I've seen, Mormon theology is not
00:37:42.140 influencing the chosen it is scripture and so there are lots of different people of lots of
00:37:49.260 different faiths that we work with that aren't necessarily influencing our work there are people
00:37:54.600 that would be like saying that you shouldn't listen to relatable because blaze tv distributes
00:37:59.140 it and the people who run blaze tv might have you know different beliefs than i do and so that is
00:38:04.940 not including lds yeah but i didn't want but i did want to just kind of give us the opportunity
00:38:10.100 to kind of talk about that
00:38:11.480 and hear you clarify it
00:38:12.580 because I know a lot of people,
00:38:13.860 you know, did have questions.
00:38:15.380 Yeah, absolutely.
00:38:15.920 And I think those are healthy questions.
00:38:17.060 And I would just say,
00:38:17.920 like you just said,
00:38:18.840 even if we end up disagreeing
00:38:22.180 on some of these issues,
00:38:23.480 I don't believe there's a disagreement
00:38:25.400 about the content of the show.
00:38:28.220 And I've said from the beginning,
00:38:31.000 the show speaks for itself.
00:38:33.780 And I am a flawed, sinful human being.
00:38:37.720 and regardless of our conversation about lds folks there's plenty of other things about me
00:38:43.940 or something that i things that i've done things that i still do whatever that that we may disagree
00:38:49.140 about or that i struggle with like do not look at the show as the bible do not look at me as god do
00:38:56.060 not look at jonathan roomie who plays jesus as jesus we are flawed human beings unlike the bible
00:39:01.520 the bible is perfect the bible is what you are looking to as your authority this is a show that's
00:39:07.040 going to have, that's made by a flawed person, and I'm not claiming direct scriptural authority
00:39:12.660 or inspiration from God. I'm doing my best to try to give a plausible account of the truth
00:39:19.840 and intentions of Jesus in the Gospels. I think we have a short clip.
00:39:24.860 This is a scene with little James, who's one of the disciples, who is played by Jordan Walker
00:39:31.580 Ross, who has cerebral palsy, mild cerebral palsy and scoliosis. And when I decided to cast him as
00:39:36.940 one of the disciples i remember thinking oh boy speaking of theological implications and debates
00:39:42.380 and all that we're gonna have to tackle this one of why doesn't god heal everybody because we can
00:39:48.020 look around and see that you know jesus while he was here on earth probably we don't see too many
00:39:53.840 we don't see any examples in the gospels of him not healing someone uh so that may you know that
00:39:59.040 i know some people had questions when they watched the scene that we're about to show of of uh of one
00:40:03.560 of his own disciples saying hey you're sending us out two by two to go heal and i'm not healed
00:40:08.740 yeah why is that yeah okay let's go ahead and play that wanted to ask you a question please
00:40:14.620 you're sending us out with the ability to heal the second lane
00:40:20.160 yes that that is what you said yes so you're telling me that i have the ability to heal
00:40:33.560 Forgive me, I just find that difficult to imagine with my condition, which you haven't healed.
00:40:45.760 Do you want to be healed?
00:40:51.220 Yes, of course, if that's possible.
00:40:55.580 I think you've seen enough to know it's possible.
00:40:57.320 why haven't you in the scene in episode two um jesus says yeah it's a good story if if when i
00:41:10.960 do miracles you know that's a good story um but but when you think about it sometimes even we as
00:41:16.660 human beings even when we experience a miracle or a great joy or some sort of wonderful resolution
00:41:21.760 to a problem that we face on earth,
00:41:24.520 even then sometimes we forget it.
00:41:26.040 Sometimes it doesn't stick.
00:41:27.140 Sometimes we reject God even after that takes place.
00:41:30.540 Sometimes the best story
00:41:32.080 and sometimes the best example of God's faithfulness
00:41:35.700 is in the midst of pain and struggle
00:41:38.620 when we can still trust God.
00:41:41.040 That is oftentimes what allows us
00:41:43.880 to have the most impact on people
00:41:45.340 because there are so many people in this world
00:41:47.660 who don't necessarily believe and who are hurting
00:41:50.300 and we can say, you know what?
00:41:51.200 god hurt god hurts sometimes too jesus experienced suffering pain he didn't promise that he would
00:41:58.300 alleviate all suffering and pain if anything he promised that we would experience a lot of it on
00:42:02.260 this earth uh the book of james talks about there's a verse that says um consider it joy
00:42:07.420 when you experience trials of many kinds because it's the the the testing of your faith produces
00:42:13.160 endurance and uh it's it's similar to um you know working out you know like when you the process of
00:42:21.880 working out oftentimes means lifting things that weren't meant to be lifted and and causing your
00:42:26.780 body pushing your body past what it what you think it might be capable of and that produces strength
00:42:31.020 and so during this holiday season um with sometimes it's a it almost puts a spotlight
00:42:37.180 on your suffering because you're seeing everyone having so much joy and happiness and you're like
00:42:41.200 why aren't i experiencing that and uh little james says later in that scene he's like
00:42:46.420 i i know it's easy to say i'm fearfully and wonderfully made it's the song of david you
00:42:53.360 know it's a psalm but it doesn't make experiencing this any easier and it doesn't make me feel like
00:42:59.540 less of a burden and jesus talks about how all of us have something all of us every single person
00:43:05.400 that you see successful or not successful has something in their life that is a struggle or
00:43:10.080 a hindrance or a or a pain point or some piece of suffering and finding joy in the midst of
00:43:17.020 suffering it's not easy but when you have a relationship with god and you have the ability
00:43:21.560 to think on an eternal perspective as opposed to a temporary one on when you can get on the joy
00:43:27.920 program instead of the happiness program because happiness comes and goes but that joy that that
00:43:32.160 is can exist even in the midst of of of pain it's difficult and i don't think in in one minute i'm
00:43:38.000 to be able to give the answer to how to find it beyond just all I can tell you is that I've
00:43:44.660 never met anyone who didn't end up finding a relationship with Jesus who didn't get more on
00:43:50.780 that joy plan as opposed to the happiness plan. And I do think at the risk of sounding cheesy,
00:43:55.880 that's what makes Christmas so awesome is you go, when Jesus was born, this thing that we're
00:44:02.040 celebrating the messiah the savior of the universe actually came to a stable to parents who were
00:44:08.280 really poor and scared and in over their heads and just as freaked out as sometimes we get and
00:44:13.880 that's part of what the chosen is all about is trying to help you understand that the that the
00:44:18.120 questions and the challenges and the the doubts that they faced 2 000 years ago are the same that
00:44:25.080 we face today. And hopefully you can see that the answer and the solution to those questions and
00:44:32.760 doubts is the same today as it was 2000 years ago. Yes. And amen. Well, thank you so much.
00:44:38.220 Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much for
00:44:41.200 having me on. I appreciate this.
00:44:55.080 Thank you.