Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1175 | Jase Gets a Peek Behind the Scenes of “The Chosen” Season 6 & Why Faith Is Hard in Hollywood

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Jase, Al, and Zach sit down with Dallas Jenkins, director of “The Chosen,” for a candid peek behind the scenes on faith and filmmaking. Jase shares how Phil used to deal with producers who wanted to water down his Jesus talk, and Dallas walks through the show’s guardrails including script review, theological checks and balances, and a constant aim to point viewers back to Scripture. The guys explore the industry’s pressure to soften explicit faith, and how to keep Jesus’ name loud and clear when the world doesn’t want to hear it. In this episode: John 5, verses 39–40; Hebrews 1, verses 1–3; John 2, verse 19; John 14–16; John 17, verse 11; John 17, verse 12; John 17, verses 18–20; Luke 24, verses 13–35; Acts 1, verse 6 Chapters: 00:00–06:38 “The Chosen” Points the Way to Jesus 06:38–15:59 How Phil Dealt with Hollywood Producers 16:00–27:00 The Problem with Filming Jesus’ Last Supper Prayer  27:01–40:41 Why Didn’t the Apostles Get It? 40:42–51:10 Giving Judas a Believable Backstory 51:11–1:00:38 Sneak Peek Into “The Chosen” Season 6 — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashamed. Now we have the reason why we came to Nashville. Do you realize you're why we're here? Dallas. Tinkin. You started a series of events that you're like, I'm going to be in Nashville. I'm going to be in Nashville. We're doing a couple of interviews while we're here. And hey, we've been, we've done this before in Nashville. Yeah. But we did, Zach and I, were you part of that? What part? The part where they were in Nashville.

I wasn't there. Yeah, I came. So I was the one that got left out. You got left out of that one. I got left out of that. But you included me this time. But you took the show to Nashville and so we did. Yeah.

That's the time you're here. That's fine. I'd love to see you too. Well, you know, our audience, Dows, is the reason why we found the chosen because we had not watched it yet. And we kept getting these, like, you know, emails and stuff from our listeners. And they're like, have you seen The Chosen.

Why aren't y'all talking about the Chosen? I was like, what is that? What is the show? We are the Chosier. I didn't know what they were talking about. There was another show. You got to check it out. And around the same time, a mutual friend of ours, a fellow McLeer, sent me your number

and said, you need to meet this guy. Y'all need to connect because y'all are on the same wavelength because you know them from L.A. or something. And so I reached out. I'm like, I don't know. We're a family. We used to be on TV. And you're like, you guys.

And then I didn't hear from him here like two days. And then you sent one back and says, oh, I know who you. are. Of course. Because, I mean, I didn't know. You're just as soon. Yeah, yeah. Well, meanwhile, my wife, she was punching me for, because she was watching the

Chosen. Yeah. And was like, you need to watch this. But I just thought what I thought like, how. And so finally when they started coming together. Because I was like, what is? And they said, oh, yeah, it's crowdfunded. And, you know, it's out there.

And it's on the internet first. And I was thought, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we always say 80% of our viewers started reluctant. Yeah. You know, like either concerned it wouldn't be biblically faithful or concerned it would be cheesy or concerned it was low, right, just weren't, you know.

I'm guilty of all those things. That's why I wasn't as excited, but I should have trusted my wife, my best friend. Because she said, no, it's not cheesy, this is good. And then I finally watched it. And I thought, this is incredible. This is awesome. But we love you guys and love what you're doing and love this podcast. And I think this is my third time on because, and we were talking about this before,

just this morning when we connected is what we do, in our opinion, is a baton handoff to what you do. And what I want to do too, and what my wife does with, because my wife heads up our Bible studies and our devotional books that we do for each season is when you know and love Jesus more, what's next? Well, you want to worship. You want to be disciples. You want to dig in deeper. We're not going to be watching TV shows in heaven. Okay, we know that the chosen is not the end game. That's right. The chosen is not the thing. The chosen is designed to point a spotlight towards the thing. Yeah.

And to illuminate the thing. And we sometimes hear the phrase, oh, watch the chosen, and then the Bible came to life for me. And I always say, okay, well, no, Bible's always been alive. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes a show or a song or a podcast can bring us to life a little more. Yeah.

So that the Bible then becomes even more enriching and more. And maybe it sticks more because I think sometimes people are afraid to admit this, but sometimes you open up the Bible with no context, and you go, I don't get this verse. This is, this is, we were just talking about it again, before we can, we can talk about it today, too, about the term apostle. I didn't actually know until I started making the chosen, and I sat down to write the scene where Jesus sends out the apostles two by two, and it's, and the delineates between apostles and disciples, that the apostle means one who is sent. So I'm like, okay, that's an opportunity to put that into the show and give people some

context. But if I would have read it without knowing that, I would have missed out on that. So the idea of what we might refer to as extra biblical doesn't mean non-biblical, but it means we're going to find some context, explore some cultural context, historical context, and yes, even occasionally artistic imagination in an effort to, you know, to go deeper into God's words. So that's a long way around just saying, I love what you guys do.

So it's what anybody does when they teach or preach the word. I mean, it's extra biblical. If I'm pasturing and I'm teaching a sermon, I mean, it's not, it is not the actual word of God that I'm saying. I'm pontificating. No pastors get up and just read the Bible and then sit down and go, thank you for coming today. Let's unpack it.

Let's go deeper. And there are things that, A, we don't know just from reading it because we don't have a history book with us either. So someone needs to help open that up for us. B, as a pastor, as a shepherd, someone called by God to help lead and unpack, I might have some insights into this passage through my study, through my calling, through my prayer time, that might illuminate something for you that you might not otherwise have illuminated. Exactly.

That's the goal of what we do. And I just like to lead with that, especially coming on to a podcast like yours that is so rooted in the word. I know there's people who sometimes go, oh, it's a TV show, it's got stuff in it that's not from the Bible. can I trust it? Can I, should I be consuming this? Could I be confused? And whether or not, there's agreement on whether you should watch the chosen or not is not up to me. But I would say that you should know that the creator of the show, and my wife and I,

who are tasked with stewarding this thing and our Bible studies that result from it, we believe that the Bible is perfect and enriching, and our whole goal is to point people towards it. And we have no desire to do anything other than that. And so we're never wanting to contradict it, never wanting to create a new gospel, just a TV show. And I just want people to know that, that they can trust that. At the very least, I'm rooting my writing of the show in scripture and in prayer and in boundaries that have been set for us by some of our theological scholars, all who believe that the Bible is perfect. But I think the first time you were on the show, I said this, I'm not sure. But we viewed our reality TV show very similar.

In other words, it was our lives. It was our, and most of our storylines on Duck Dynasty were our childhood stories, like things we had done and experienced. And then you kind of saw them play out through Jason Willie as adults, you know, doing these things they did. And so, but it wasn't a religious show. It wasn't a, it was made to entertain. Except for the prayer. Except for the prayer. Which we were not realizing the power of that.

Right. We thought we would like. I mean, Dad just said in the moment, he just said, well, you know, we prayed. The director was like, he imagined it being like the end of Dukes of Hazard where, you know, someone, you know, does a Waylon Jennings does a voiceover. We're all just sitting around talking about how rednecks live. But dad was like, Mr. Director, we pray before we eat. And that's how the prayer got started.

Well, I think when we had the first meeting, we had a prayer. And the guy said, how often do y'all do this? And, of course, my dad, in his style. I was like, what? How often we do this three times a day, not counting other prayers during the day, but we get together as a family. For crying out loud. And so the director said, I think we should make this a part of the show.

My dad was like, you think? This is what American needs. But so the show, the idea was through stories, through a family, through whatever, our greater goal was always to talk Jesus to people, but that wasn't the venue of that television show. That was great. And we get to do that. We travel.

We speak. We write books. We have all these opportunities, which I told you, I think that's the brilliant thing about the way you approach the chosen from the beginning. I love the idea of thinking about storylines about the people around Jesus. I mean, how would they have been impacted?

What would they have been like? because we study this, and there's so many questions about that, because we're just so zeroed in on this. And so I love the show. Well, I was going to say, I mean, my mentor, I mean, I had a life-change moment one time just in my theological studies because a guy I really thought a lot of just summed up, you know, 60-second little speech that said,

the Bible's about Jesus. And, you know, he was using Hebrews 1. the first three or four verses as kind of the template of that. You know, in these last days, God has spoken to us through his son. He chose to reveal himself as a human. And he made this little statement. He said, Genesis to Malachi is saying he's coming to the earth.

Matthew to John, he's here. Somebody put it in red letters so you can see when he talked. In Acts of the Revelation, he's coming back. And for some moment, for some reason in that moment, I just thought, the Bible's about Jesus. How simple is this? You know, if you want to know what God is like, know what Jesus is like. But Jesus echoed that, because I want to read this, when we were in John 5, which a lot like your show and a lot like our show, which was not a Jesus show, but people would see the spirit of God living in people in a silly show. and were drawn to it for some reason.

I mean, how many times have you heard that? And when I'm in a, like, for some reason I was drawn, there was something there. And now I say, with confidence, you were drawn to the spirit of God in us. It was not about us. It was never about us. That was the draw. And, but what I was going to say is with your show and our show, we get the most pushback from religious people, which reminds me.

I'm sure Dallas doesn't get us. While I'm setting up reading this passage, which reminds me of Jesus' ministry, who did he have the most arguments with? People that believed in the same God. But he said in John 5, and he's having an argument, and he says, you diligently study, this is 39, John 5, 39. You diligently study the scriptures, which he's talking about, the Old Testament scriptures, because you think. that by them you possess eternal life. Well, if you just stop right there, you would think, well, yeah, it's the word of God. And he says, these are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life, which proves my point about that little Genesis

to Malachi. Yep. I'm coming. We got that from Jesus in John 5. He said, that was about me. Let me sum it up for you. He didn't give you all the details of all the stories. He's just like, it was about me coming and I'm here. Why don't you come to me and have life? So I think what you're doing is way better than our TV show because you're actually, well, of course, they're all different. They have different purposes and reasons. And I'm, because I thought, oh, they're going to show the spirit of God. The problem was the Hollywood group that we were working with didn't get that memo. So the first episode came out, had my sister-in-law being bleeped like she was saying, using profanity. And we're all sitting at the watch party and everybody looks at Corey like, what did you say?

And she was like, I don't know. And I thought, Corey, I've never heard you say a customer or not. Why would you pick this show? I've known her since she was seven, eight years old. There's the least millions of people before you cuss to your brother. Exactly. But look, we were all sitting around looking at her and she said, I think they just. did that to say I said a customer.

She said, I do not say a four-letter word. And we're like, what? My dad was like, I'll take care of this, you know. But isn't that weird how they put that spin on it, which later, I mean, it took a few years, but they actually, at some point, took the bleeps out and let her say what she said because we kept making a big deal of it, like on podcast like I'm doing right now. I'm like, why would you do that? And then the second season, they had the dust up because they were cutting in Jesus' name when dad would say the prayer.

Oh, sure. And, you know, and it's not that you have to say that. But, you know, it got under dad's skin. So he said, why are they cutting that? So he asked somebody. He's like, so why are they cutting that? Well, let me get to someone. You know, everybody's got to talk to somebody else and finds that, well, the explanation back to him was we're not sure.

There's a lot of people that love this show. And we don't want to make it too preaching. So dad doesn't say anything. And then the next family prayer, he goes all. off in a prayer on all this heathenous bunch you've sent here from L.A., and I pray that they don't burn from good. Oh, my goodness. Oh, yeah.

He did the whole thing in a prayer. And then he says, and they'll probably cut this, but in Jesus' name, amen. And everybody in the family looks up where everybody's laughing at the table. Well, he knew they were never going to run it. His prayer was about the people. No, of course. But you know what? You're not doing either one of this, right?

You're not bleeping or taking the name of Jesus. There are no bleeps in the chosen. By the way, they put it back in. after that, so it worked. But Jesus' name is quite common in the show. Well, that brings me... Here's what's really funny.

The really quickly is dog the bounty hunter, actually, when he did his reality show, said, we pray, and I demand that you keep in in Jesus' name. So he goes, he just said, I demand, like, I'll do the show if you include our pre-

punch prayer, and you don't cut, and I don't know, he might have known that you guys had experienced. I don't know, but he had talked to. He demanded that. He demanded that. It's like, you just have to include the whole prayer. Yeah.

Well, and... It's just interesting. I was going to ask you a question, but before I asked, because you brought up a good point, because that's mentioned. Jesus mentions that in John 17, which is where we're currently at, and which is, ironically, kind of where you're at in the Chosen. Yeah, season five. Season five, which is the last completed season, that's kind of where you left off up until

the point of Jesus being arrested. Well, yeah. And in fact, episode one of... season five opens with John 17. Yeah. And it's kind of disorients people a little bit because it's like, whoa, why are we already at the end of the Last Supper? What's going on here?

And we play out the Last Supper over the course of the whole season. And we actually play it in reverse because there were themes from, I mean, the Last Supper, when you look at John's gospel of it, the chat, multiple chapters, it is so dense. Yeah. And so filled with truth bombs that to just kind of pack it all into one episode. just play it out and we just like it's just too much. So we spread it out and then also tied some of the themes from each moment from the Last Supper into moments in the episodes. But yeah, season five actually opens with a portion of this high priestly prayer from John 17. Yeah. And that's what I was going to ask you. In that section, he talks about the name. There's somewhere. This is embarrassing. I'm bringing out my my Bible, which is on my phone. Which I've already ridiculed you. Yeah. And you've all your try. The bling. It's like something of a Jules Verne novel.

It's so obnoxious. And my wife is so embarrassed by it. I got it because it's got this thing on the back. Oh, see, there's the photo. Oh, yeah. And I meant to order the black case and it came in gold. For a 50-year-old father, this is not the most. It looks like you should be wearing like a white velvet track suit.

No, no, no. There's nothing on brand about this. for me. I apologize to anyone. Well, now I'm actually looking where he used that reference about the name. I can't find it in. Oh, here it is. It's in verse 11, where he says, I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world. Now he's praying for his disciples. And I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me so that they may be one as we're one, which I went down a rabbit hole, which we commonly do on this podcast. I'm trying to make a point that if you go to John 17 and would try to do, I would say eight,

so y'all have eight episodes per season, you're not going to be able to go down all the rabbit holes of just this prayer. Yeah. Well, how long have we been in these four times? Well, one thousand. that we've done 1,200 episodes, but with a podcast, you can stop. What do you're coming up with the season?

How do you guys structure? How do you decide what's going to go in there? Yeah, and I'll start with that, and then I'll go into this specific prayer because we don't include the whole prayer in the show, and I'll explain why. But when we go into, well, I'll take you back quickly. I won't spend too much time with this,

but to 2017, when we first came up with the idea to do the show, I had done the short film about the birth of Christ and got this opportunity. And so we're like, all right, let's, let's, I brought in two co-writers and I'm like, let's kind of map out where we're going here. And so we knew we would do seven seasons. And we always start with stories from the Bible. So we go, okay, we know where this is going to end.

Season seven will be our resurrection season. And we'll explore kind of what happens after that. And when the apostles are sent out to the world. then we worked our way backwards from there. So then within each season, so season five is Holy Week, we knew that was going to cover Holy Week. So then we go into the scripture

and we look at these stories and we go, okay, we know where season five is going to end, which is Jesus, you know, arrest. We know that we are going to cover the Last Supper. We go dig into the Last Supper. We start looking for things that are cinematic. Because, again, it is a TV show. It's not a documentary.

It's not a church service. We are like, well, this needs to be entertaining. It needs to be, you know, artistic. So we're like, what are some of our ways in artistically and emotionally? And you start reading it and you see how dense it is. And we go, okay, that's why we need to maybe spread this out a little bit. We find different themes. I mean, Jesus, in the Gospels, our operating assumption is that John, that the chapters

that cover the Last Supper don't cover everything that they said at the Last Supper. All right. Let's supper, they were probably there for a couple hours. We know through Jewish history and Jewish context that they would have done multiple different practices for their Passover meal and liturgy that aren't in Scripture. So you learn what those are. And you go, oh, that's really interesting. Oh, so how now can we see this through the lens of human beings, not stained glass windows

or statues or biblical figures who at the time weren't biblical figures? Just guys. They were guys following Jesus, didn't know the books that they would be writing or that would be written about them, didn't know they were going to be stained glass windows. They're trying to figure it out. They had no idea what was coming. They had no idea that when Jesus was speaking about his death and resurrection that he was talking literally, because sometimes he wasn't talking literally. Sometimes he was speaking a metaphor. So you read all this and you're going, all right, if I was one of them, and I certainly, as Jesus even says in the Gospels, didn't understand he was going to die.

And Jesus even said, you're not going to understand this now. I'm just telling you now so that when it happens, you can believe that I knew what I was doing and that this was all part of it. And they were like, yes, okay, thank you. Now, who's going to sit on your right and left hand when you get to happen? I mean, they were just so clueless, and you think you read the scripture going, how could they be so clueless? He was saying it plainly.

So that became the big, to answer your question, how do we structure it? We try to come at it from a human perspective. Once we get the storylines from the scriptures that kind of are our touch points that we want to hit, Then we just come at it from a human perspective and go, what would a human being who was in the middle of this, who loved Jesus so much, what would these words have meant to them? Without hindsight, 2020.

When we know for a fact that they didn't get it. So they got it later. Oh, my goodness, they gave up their lives for it. They were so passionate about it. They understood it so well. They went and told the whole world, and they wrote it down, and we have this,

that we can now do podcasts like this to explore it. At the time, they had no clue. So how do we make it understandable, to a modern audience and how do we wrestle with it ourselves. So that's where we start. So now, John 17, for example, is this immensely dense prayer that has so many theological rabbit holes that you can go down that we go, you know what?

I'm not sure a television show is the best place. Because if Jesus says a couple, a handful of verses here, that an entire sermon could be talked about, how do we dip our toe into that water and then leave you there without giving without turning this into one big sermon so there's some things that we just go there's so much theological richness richness in here that we're going to hint at it we're going to put a we're going to start it but we're going to ultimately hope that the viewer goes got a taste of it there where else can I where can I get the full thing and the full thing is in the scripture and I just don't I'm just

hesitant to try to uh solve every theological puzzle that can come in the course of an episode of television. Well, it's like, you know, twice in this prayer by Jesus, which makes you immediately, when you read the whole prayer a couple of times, you realize that our prayer lives are pretty weak. I mean, this is like, but he refers back to being with the father before the beginning of time. And then he gets to the end, and he's like,

my prayer is that they can be included and have the love that I had you before the beginning of the time. Well, I'm thinking, if you're going to make a show about that, now how are you going to go back to the beginning of the time? Wrap your head around on what that looked like. Well, it's impossible. And any attempt would be so cheesy that people would be like, what are you trying to say here? It's almost beyond human comprehension what he's actually talking about. Why? Well, let me just give you a quick sneak peek of season six, which we just finished filming.

We do explore some of what you're talking about because to explain even the crucifixion and to understand why Jesus would willingly do some of this. We have a scene where John and Mary Magdalene are saying to him, all he's on the cross, like, why does it have to be? Is this a spoiler alert? Yeah, I'm not going to give away too much. I'm just saying Jesus gives these breadcrumbs and hints from Isaiah. And in many ways, from the beginning of time,

that are precursors to the crucifixion. And so to your point, you are correct. To try to just fit this all into one episode and try to have him explain it all, it would either A, be impossible to fully capture, or B, it would just be, you might as well just sit through a sermon. I mean, why rely on television to do that? My point is we had to spread that out over multiple episodes, multiple seasons even, the theology of what Jesus did and why he came.

Because otherwise, if that's all we did as the TV show was just portray it, strictly portray it and nothing else, that can be confusing too. So we try to find this middle ground between just a fun television show showing you what happened and a Bible study. which will come hopefully after watching the show, but we're trying to find that middle ground. So you're having, I mean, I think he was kind of curious because I am too. So you have to have some kind of theological meetings with people saying, what are we going to highlight from the biblical side?

Then you have a whole other task of doing the cinematography side, which I know about that, which is a full-time job. Yes. So trying to balance that would seem like a pretty big challenge. Yeah, no, it is. And so we'll just take John 17 for an example. I mean, do you all argue, like, lovingly? I'm like, are you sitting around in a room saying, I mean, we got to. And I would assume you're trying to keep this broad enough to appeal to the global church.

You're not really, you guys aren't getting into like a, yeah, so you're trying to keep it just generous orthodoxy, Nicene Creed kind of. Yes, although I will say I don't make too many decisions based on trying to appeal to more people. Yeah. That really isn't the goal. The goal is to, just objectively, am I capturing the character and intentions of Jesus and the gospel?

Because I can't cover everything. I like that attitude. You know. I would subscribe to that. Yeah, so I can't cover everything. And at the same time, we're also adding context, you know, human context, artistic imagination. And so I want to be.

make sure that what the reason that we have the theological experts and Bible experts in our lives who read our scripts and give us feedback and you know we have kind of red yellow and green red is I can't put my name on this I can't approve this if you do it I mean it's your right to do it I mean they don't have veto power but both come and see that which is come and see is the nonprofit that finances the production of the show they have their own theological governance that that reads the scripts and then watches the show. And we've agreed that if there's a red, you know, red light from either their team or my team

that I already had before come and see came on board, that I've just agreed. If there's a red light that says, I can't endorse this, that we won't, that we won't do it. Yeah. We'll find a way to come out a different direction. And there's only been one, one time where they were like, we can't do this.

It was actually in season one when Peter, Simon at the time, is fishing on Shabbat. And our Jewish rabbi was like, there's no way this would happen. It would be too grievous of a sin. And so we went back and he goes, you're treating it somewhat casually. And so we went back into it

and we found a great solution, which was that Peter's mistake is that he's treating his tax problem as a grievous like life or death situation, which is the exception you can make. And he's treating it like a life or death situation, which gives him the freedom to do. this. Yeah. And, and that's where he's making his mistakes. Is he treating the things of earth

like they are alive? I mean, the fact that you're looking at this, this closely kind of warms my soul. Yeah. Because I think most people say, that was it. You know, like, well, because we really, by the time they read it, we've done a lot of work too to make sure that we're really not contradicting the character and intentions of Jesus and the gospel. So then, but then they have yellow lights, which, yeah, or yellow flags or whatever, which is, you're going to get some pushback for this or I wouldn't necessarily do it this way, but I don't think this is a salvation issue. We don't think this is blasphemous, but it's, it's, you know, here's another way to look at it. We've made changes based on that sometimes, too, of like, oh, that's actually a smarter way of

looking at it, or that's better theology than what we had. But this isn't a, you know, kingdom issue. This isn't a salvation issue. Yeah, right, right. And then we have green, which is just, oh, that's really great. That's really cool. We think this is going to really help illuminate a beautiful passage of scripture written, and that's, that's what we do, uh, that we look at. But John 17, last supper, when we came into that, that was very challenging because as you know, the last supper also is a, is a dividing line between a lot of Catholics and Protestants as to what the, what the, what the, the, when he, when he drank the bread and drink, yeah, drink bread.

I always said, drink the bread and ate the cup. No. When he drank the cup and ate the bread, what that actually means when he does this high priestly prayer, which is what it's known as, Jesus had spoken these words, he's lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the son may glorify you. And then, like, that enough is pretty rich. And we just kept going and going, and we're like, all right, we can't do this whole prayer. So what's the part that we believe is the most relevant to this moment in the last supper and in the show?

And we're going to, we're going to excerpt this part. And we know that the rest of this is just going to be talked about on a podcast like this. Yeah, and in sermon. So which one did you pick? Did you pick just those first few? Yeah, so. Because I hadn't seen that episode. I hadn't seen season.

Yeah, since season five, well, you got to catch up. I got to catch up. Especially if you're going to cover it. I try it last time, I couldn't figure it out on my TV. I'm embarrassed. It's on prime right now. Oh, okay. But yeah, but if you're traveling, uh, might, might be difficult.

But yeah. So seasons one through five are all on prime video. Um, and are about to come there by the time, I think someone listened to this will be out in the app. Okay. We actually watch season five at the. Theater each segment, which was awesome. Yeah. But this is a really beautiful passage when he says,

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So that passage was a, we really believed was a beautiful way to end that last supper portion in episode one. Yeah. And so then when it keep, it just goes into so much that we thought, oh, my goodness. Yeah. This is just, this is a depth. Well, especially, I love the idea of working your way back through, because we had mentioned this when we were studying, you know, 14, 15, 16, that John does such a great job of revealing the whole part about the Holy Spirit.

I mean, none of the other gospel writers really deal with it like he did in that depth. And so you look back at it. I mean, it is a nice way to kind of start at the end and work your way back. Yeah, and we spent, we did spend more time on and included much more of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Because we thought, that's a key, key part of the Last Supper and a key part of this show because we love the disciples so much because we've spent four and a half seasons with them. So now that we're seeing them at the last supper, and Jesus is telling them, I'm not going to be with you, much longer. Well, as a viewer, you go, well, how we have to know how the apostles would react to

that. Right. And the only thing that would allow them to not completely freak out and go, wait a second, what are you doing? And it was, he says, but I'm sending a helper. Yeah. Right. There is going to be a help. So that was just enough for the disciples to go, okay, all right, we don't know when it's going to be, and they didn't know it was going to be that night. But for them to be able to even function, they needed to know that when Jesus said, I won't be here forever, but I'm going to send a helper. That gave us enough as writers of the show

for them to wrestle with that. What does that mean? Okay. And it allowed them to kind of be assuaged, at least temporarily. Probably their understanding of that was so limited that when Pentecost happened, they were probably like, whoa. Whoa.

Whoa. We didn't know that's what he meant. Right. And that's the thing that we included that was very important, that I was grateful to actually. I hadn't remembered that Jesus said this in scripture. But there were so many times in the Gospels where he tells them what's going to happen explicitly. Yeah. And they just don't get it.

And he says, you're not going to get it. But I'm saying it to you now because you will get it eventually. We read that. And that's what's such a cool thing about that. So that we included it in the show because. it's the only thing that explains why they are, in our mind, seem so dense. Yeah. How can you not get this?

But then it's always kind of the posture, it seems like God's promise, even like Abraham, you know, there's no way that he understood the actual promise when God gave it to him. Like he's thinking, oh, a bunch of earthly grain kids. He had probably no concept that four guys are going to be sitting around a podcast table talking about, we're all heirs of Abraham. He had no, he had no times. In Nashville, across the pond. Yeah.

Right. It's, it's, that this is, you know, our task. I mean, because I think,

even as humans, even how many times do you say, I'm going to die and be buried and raised? I mean, he starts off in John 2 saying that, I am the temple,

destroy this temple. He's talking about the body. That all sounds great until you die. And then there, as humans, I'm like, that's over.

Yeah. I mean, you would immediate, I think we don't give them enough. leeway how can you believe that you just saw your friend die

oh because he said he was going to come back he's going to come back and now he's back you just wouldn't believe that. We portray them in season five is constantly one step behind Jesus. They're with him and that's actually the theme of season five is can you trust and follow

even when you don't understand because they so clearly didn't. And that's all. it was awesome. That's the truth. That's why he gave three chapters about, I'm going to send you a helper. I mean, 14, 15, and 16. So they're confused. And, I mean, even in, at the last supper, when Jesus says, I'm going to wash your feet. And without knowing the Jewish context of that, it's difficult to understate how much, how shocked they would have been and how scandalized. And Peter's like, no, no, never, never. That's offensive. And then, but here's what's so great

about Peter. Jesus says, well, then if you won't, let me wash your feet. then you're out. You have no part of me. He goes, okay, never mind. I'll wash everything. And so Peter didn't understand, but he was committed. And all the 11 didn't understand. They genuinely didn't.

And I think that's, there's a lesson in that. And that Jesus is like, you're still coming with me. And he even says in this prayer, one of the verses in John chapter 17, that's always fascinating to me on my blinked out phone. You're listening. You can't see it. but it's obnoxious. But I'm reading the scripture here.

As you sent me into the world, so this is verse 18, as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, 19, and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. So, and then he says,

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me. So he's doing this prayer, like he's constantly saying, they're human, like, I'm human too, but they're like, they don't get it. You sent me for them. For their sake, I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in truth.

They had to be going, what does that even mean? He's just saying all these things so that when it happened, they were like, oh, oh, that's what he meant by that. But you have to remember that as a human being, as a close friend, there are times when we don't allow our brains to even process something so traumatic. Right. Like science has shown this over and over again that we will literally change. what's in our brains in order to fit into our own preferred story.

And so that's another thing that made sense to us as we were working out season five. How could they be so blind? How could they not see it when he's explicitly telling them? Is that when you don't want to see something, you will do anything or say anything to yourself to keep you from getting them. And so when Jesus also spoke in parables, you have to just assume that they were like, okay, he's got to be telling a parable right now.

There's no way this is real. obviously the Messiah, our teacher, our rabbi, the one that could at any moment, as he says to them, call on the Legion of Angels to stop this. They're like, well, then he's got the power of the wind and waves in his hand. He can stop this at any point. All right, now stop it. And you'll stop it right now. Yeah.

And now, no, he's going to get arrested. Oh, no, he's going to go, wait a second. Now he's before pilot. Wait a second. And that's what we are wrestling with in season five and then ultimately what we just filmed in season and six is at each stage, the apostles and the followers and the women were all like, there's no way, there's no way, there's no way. Well, even when he said, I'm going to send you a helper, if that was me, I'd be like,

well, he's not going to be as good as you. Because here's Jesus who was flawless. Even there, how are you making sense of that? Oh, you're going to get the idea that he's going to be the spirit of me in you. And we show Nathaniel in that scene speaks up and goes, wait a minute, well, Why do you, we, we don't want another person. We have you. We have you.

We want you. Let's, we're good with that. Yeah. And, and then Philip goes in an effort to kind of like, well, okay, then show us the father just so we can be fully convinced. And he's like, what, you don't think I've shown you enough? I still have, Philip, one of my most faithful. Well, you kind of see that in Mary too at the resurrection.

I know I'm skipping ahead, but still. Spoiler alert. She was like, we're back. We're back going again. I think she was probably thinking this is kind of like Lazarus. We can just go back to the way we were. And he's like, no, no, it's not how this works. I got to leave.

And you know, she was probably thinking, what does this mean? I don't understand. But you remember even when you get to Acts 1, I mean, the last question they asked him before he left was now, is this the, this one, this one Israel is going to be restored? Remember, they're still thinking in terms of here and now. And he's like, that's not for you. You don't need to worry about it. You need to stay here and get ready because something's supposed to happen. me.

Well, there's that, and then on the road to Amas is such an interesting, I don't know how far you guys are going to get. It would be interesting, that road to Amas after he's resurrected. Oh, yeah. And he meets the two disciples that are like, just, they're just distraught over what's happened. And he's, hey, what's going on? They're like, have you been living under a rock?

And, like, you've not seen what's happened here over the last three days. The one that we hoped was the, we hoped he'd be the hope for Israel. He died, and he's been dead for three days. And then it's, and then Jesus opens the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, and and he shows that, and you can imagine that moment for them and in the upper room that it was like, it's like watching that movie Sixth Sense. You know, you watch the end of it, and you're like,

oh, wait, Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. And the rest of the movie makes sense now. You're like, oh. Someone listening right now who just is like, you just ruined six cents for me. You have those moments in movies where the viewer, but also the main character is like, all these things flashed out.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh, that's what I meant. I'm in, oh my gosh, and you're the killer, or you've been dead the whole time. That was a clever movie, though. I'm like, if you haven't seen it by now, there's no. Yeah, that's on the other. They haven't seen it by now. It's 20 years.

No, but that's the thing. When that happened with each of the apostles, it's pretty clear. It didn't seem to fully take root until the Holy Spirit came in Acts 1. And when they're, oh, oh, that's what life means. That's what death means. That's what eternity means. That's what sleep means. That's what, okay, you know, all these things.

Because even post-resurrection, I mean, Thomas is still like, eh, I don't, so it wasn't even the resurrection. It was the coming of the spirit in Acts 2 that really solidifies the deal. And that's what we got, that's what we explore in season five. And what I was, to conclude what I was saying earlier about the theme of season five being, can you trust and follow even when you don't understand, is Judas, of course, can't. He doesn't understand. So he chooses, well, because I don't understand it, it must be wrong. I must put a stop to it.

The religious leaders, same thing. They had faithfully studied the scriptures, as you read. They knew the Old Testament. And so when Jesus comes along and seemingly contradicts it, they can't understand it. It must be wrong. I must eliminate this. We still do that to this day. Something we don't quite understand must be wrong, therefore I must shut it down,

or I must kill it, or I must end it. And so that's the warning is you oftentimes miss out when you're none, when you're unwilling to follow and trust, if you don't understand, you miss out on the victory, on what took place. Two thousand years later, that's still the struggle. How do I get through when I'm not really understanding what's happening here? No, I think when you all depicted Judas, and you took some creative liberties, but it was, to me, you captured more the essence of the Bible because you had him justifying in his mind

why he was doing what he was doing, which is what we do. as human. He didn't like this version of Jesus, so he justified it in his mind on doing something horrific, but in his mind, well, we'll see now if he really is. I mean, I just thought it was very well done. Well, we just stumbled across a moment in John 17 that is really it causes a lot of theological discussion, which is he says, which verses when he refers to the son of perdition or the son of destruction? 12, yeah, first 12. So while I was with them, I can them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the scripture might be fulfilled. So this is, that verse alone

was a huge contributor to our understanding and portrayal of Judas. And I'm not saying that we're perfectly correct. I don't, you know, we're not claiming fact, but we do believe it's plausible the following. He says, not one of them has been long. which means the word lost means that at one point he was with him. Yeah. So there have been some people who've been uncomfortable with our portrayal of Judas in the show because they're saying, no, no, he's evil. Jesus knew he was going to betray him from the beginning.

And you were giving him almost too much credit by giving him kind of a backstory and why he made the choice that he did. And I think the notion that for three years, Judas not only participated in this work and was part of the 12, and none of them saw it coming. And he actually got authority at one point to heal and cast out demons and preach in Jesus' name. And as Jesus says here in verse 12, he's been lost, meaning that he had one point he was with him, I have guarded them.

And like a shepherd, which he doesn't say the word shepherd, but he uses that metaphor a lot. Not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction. Then he says, that the scripture might be fulfilled. So the purpose of the loss was that the scripture might be fulfilled. And so where is Judas in this? How much, now we get into the whole concept of free will. Yeah, yeah. But I was nervous about it when I was watching it

because I thought, they're going down this road, which I knew also that there's a lot of, you know, debate about it. But the notion that he went through those three years, and from the beginning, Judas knew all along he was going to betray Jesus for a slave's wage at the end of the three years, to me, is patently ludicrous. Like, it's just, it's not plausible.

Which is why I like that point that no one understood it. They were trying to. He chose them. But the way he responded, that's where we went off the way. He's not willing to follow and trust when he doesn't understand. A couple of things about that. Zach and I were talking about this earlier. It also shows you that it's true that people can be near the kingdom of God and miss it.

And we see it every day. Or we're sitting beside them. I hate to say this, but it's just the truth. I mean, I do a little way more simplistic version because I take it to a duck line. Just because you're sitting in a duck blind doesn't mean you're a duck hunter. I have taken these people. They have no concept. They're faking it.

They don't know what they're doing it and will hurt you just because they don't know how to safely use a weapon. But I think we do that the same way in church buildings. It's like, oh, I'm here. So this is who I am. I said many times closing on a sermon that, you know, Peter denied Jesus on that same night that Judas betrayed him. The difference in the two is that one stayed around long enough to witness the resurrection. And he started the church.

And as one of our forefathers in the faith, the other one took his own life. And so I tell people, don't give up. I mean, give the resurrected Lord a chance to speak into you. And so if that's where you are, don't take the easy way of just denying and going away because it won't work out, you know, so it would be bad for you. So, I mean, that to me is a very powerful part of that story. And I was so glad you said that, I mean, he mentions him in that context. But I've always felt like it did happen over that course of those three years.

Yeah, yeah. And we don't know, and we may never know on the side of eternity. what was the tipping point? When did he, you know, the Bible mentions at one point at that, you know, it says, and then the evil one overtook him. Right, right. He was essentially possessed during Holy Week, which implies that before then he might not have been. Right.

So we don't, you know, how much of it was him opening himself up to demonic activity? How much of that was a conscious choice on his part? And so we had to wrestle with that. And that's what's both fun and challenging about the show. You get to wrestle with some of those things through the lens of story. Yeah. Through the lens of storytelling. But I do believe that our portrayal of Judas is plausible.

If not factual, it's at least plausible. And I do believe it's scriptural. Even if it's not, some of the things aren't directly from the Bible. I do believe that it's scriptural. Because we start with these verses of going, okay, you know, clearly Jesus knew. what was happening. And clearly it was for the scriptures being fulfilled. And clearly Jesus says, I've guarded them. So he had Judas in his flock. Yeah. And it's interesting because you tell the story backwards, but he also watched his feet and served him in that moment.

So that's what you haven't seen yet because you haven't watched the season. Exactly. I'm behind. You saw it. But I would imagine you agree, it's a pretty intense moment. Oh, it's intense. Season five, your intensity level. And I thought the production level, I mean, to have, I don't know how many extras you had on that season. Now thousands, yeah. Thousands.

And just from the little TV I've done, I mean, I just, I was. The production level of that season five was significantly higher. And then season six even higher than that, which was a show. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, season six is. A little birdie told me all were in Italy.

Yeah. Oh, you all filmed the whole season in? No, no. We filmed the three, The crucifixion at that place in Matera, Italy, it's a first century town that Mel filmed Passion of the Christ. Multiple Jesus crucifixion movies have been filmed there because it looks, it's like the direction to the city, the skyline, all that. You can't recreate anywhere else. I was curious how they respond, like the Italians, because I guess, I mean, that'd be hard to miss because I know how Big John's production is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. On how that was received there and, you know. There's a lot of movies that come to Matera, so it's not like they were blown away by the production itself. But there was for sure multiple times when crew members, cast members, guests were overwhelmed emotionally and spiritually by what was taking place and by what we were capturing. And I was, too.

I mean, it was an incredible experience, the hardest thing I've ever done without a close second. I had my first kind of emotional breakdown, breakdown, you know, was when we were filming in Italy, and I'm away from home, way from my comfort zone. The crude doesn't speak English. You know, we're filming Jesus's body. You know, Jonathan is Jesus being lifted on this cross beam, you know, onto this stipes that's, you know, into the ground.

And he's screaming and yelling and there's blood and there's wounds. And there's, the actors are at the foot of the cross weeping. And I'm seeing this extraordinary. extraordinary backdrop and it feels so visceral and real and I'm in the middle of it and and the actors we finished the scene and and it's so visceral and intense and the and the women are are weeping and still from the scene and I and I went over to them and I was comforting and I'm just kissing him on the forehead and and and we're kind of crying together and I started to like yeah I'm like I'm spent I've got nothing so I start like realizing I'm uncontrollably weeping here and I'm the

captain of the ship and there's 200 people who we still have jobs. to do and I'm like I so I've walked away and got alone for a moment when they were setting up the next shot and I just wept and I had my arms out and I was like God I have nothing left I am spent and I helped me get through this I've got the rest of the day to film and I got to capture this and my job is to recreate this thing that you did that hundreds of millions of people are going to see all over again recreated and I you've tasked me with this and help me I can't do it right now I don't have it. So, you know, he, of course, kind of revitalized me and I kind of get back together and I'm get back on set and all right, here we go. And then they go, Mand is here. And I hadn't seen her in two weeks.

Oh, man. So she comes around the corner and, uh, and sees me, like, hey, and I literally just burst into tears. You know, here we go again. I just burst into tears and I walked up to her and she hugged me and my, I didn't even hug her back. My arms are at my sides and I just buried my face in her in her shoulder and I just like cried. And she's like, oh my goodness. And she's like, when she tells the story, she's like, I didn't expect that, of course. But I kind of instantly knew what was going on.

You know, like I could tell just from the set and what we were filming and all of this. It was very overwhelming. It's going to be special because if you think about, if you put it in a movie format, you just don't really have enough time to do the character development, right? that people, this is, I don't know if anything's ever been done like this.

No. No, it's always been a movie or a mini-series. Yeah. It's miracle to miracle Bible verse to Bible verse. I mean, we're talking for 2000, what? 17. 17, or it was, when we started to write it, so it was 2018, we made, 2019 is when it first, season one.

So we've been going for six years. I mean, this is going to, I think it's going to, it's going to be very interesting. I know it's going to be a very powerful moment, maybe the most powerful moment on screen, at least witnessing a portrayal of the resurrection, I mean, on the death of Christ because of the amount of time spent in the character development. Exactly. And that's what, it was funny, was how this whole story started, was you mentioning, and I was talking about washing Judas's feet. So it's probably not a surprise to you that the filming of and probably the watching of Jesus being lifted up onto a cross is going to be hard to watch. It's going to be very visceral. It's going to be very emotional. That's in some ways, almost the easy part to move an audience and to move a viewer.

showing Jonathan as Jesus being lifted up onto a cross and the pain and the misery of that, it's not going to be difficult to get audiences to respond emotionally. The interesting thing is to show Jesus watched Judas's feet. That's the thing that you go, I hadn't thought of that before. Like I hadn't seen that portrayed and when I know what that means, and oh my goodness, I've been watching this for several seasons, and I know what Judas is doing and what he's about to do and yada y'all and Jesus goes,

all right, Judas, it's your turn. And in that episode, when he says, your turn and he's been washing their feet and Judas goes, I don't, I don't want, please don't, you know, you kind of realize why that would be. And that's what I think the chosen can do that other portrayals can't necessarily do

because of the multi-season approach. Because we can make moments like that truly stick and truly cause us to wrestle with the word and wrestle with what we know about God because we're seeing it through a truly human lens. And then that makes the crucifixion even that much more intense. Well, we're excited about it. And on behalf of Unashamed Nation, thank you for what you're doing. We love it.

It's awesome. And thank you for coming on the podcast. And getting us all here. It was your idea. We're here. I'm going to be a Nashville. And so are we? Yeah, so let's get together and talk about it.

Always a pleasure, Dallas. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to the Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.