With The Perrys - The Art of Stewarding Your 5 Loaves and 2 Fish: A Convo with Dallas and Amanda Jenkins

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Dallas and Amanda Jenkins, creators of The Chosen, join the Perrys to talk about how God used one movie’s box-office failure to bring about the now globally popular television series about the life of Jesus.  The Jenkins talk about bringing their “five loaves and two fish” to God, letting Him handle the multiplication, and creating from a place of dependence rather than success. They discuss what it looks like to lead with authenticity, use “sanctified imagination” while staying true to Scripture, and keep their focus on honoring the character of Jesus. The conversation also covers how they handle criticism of their handling of Scripture and how they view The Chosen as both creative work and ministry.   Stream The Chosen on Prime Video or in The Chosen app: https://www.thechosen.tv/en-us Connect with the Jenkins https://www.instagram.com/dallas.jenkins/ https://www.instagram.com/amandaleejenkins/ Check out other Bible study resources and children’s books from The Chosen: https://www.amazon.com/stores/TheChosen/page/DA0F6571-B17A-41C3-8A25-5882393DA109 Scripture references John 15:2 Subscribe to the Perrys' newsletter: https://withtheperrys.myflodesk.com/zhfus4jx1s Join Preston's discipleship community for men: https://www.patreon.com/PrestonPerry/membership To support the work of the Perrys, donate via PayPal: https://paypal.me/withtheperrys Shop BOLD Apparel: boldapparel.shop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, St. Nantes. What up with y'all? Hope you are having a blessed morning, blessed evening, blessed afternoon. All the things. If you're driving, you, you know, I feel like there's a common experience that we don't talk about out loud.

This literally just came in my mind. I did not plan this. I could tell. I just thought about, like, picking up kids from school and the ordeal that can be. And it's not even ordeal. It's just, it can be, like, kind of boring

because it's like, okay, if they're out of school at 3 o'clock, show up at 2.30, why is there like 25 cars already there? Like, what do y'all do? I feel like you, I feel like you don't. So I feel late and I'm early. This is really random that you've been bringing this up, but I always, what comes in my mind, it's like, Jackie never goes to the things that I go through when I pick up the kids. I like, I know you guys give y'all mama a whole different experience because I know they might be begging you to go get slushies from the gas station. Correct. Because that's the thing about being the fun parent. Because you say yes. I know. I say yes too much.

I just need to get that strong know of my spirit. Because you'd be like, no. I think they were trying to passively aggressively manipulate me earlier this week, though. Who? Because I drove past McDonald's and I heard Autumn whisper something to Eden. Eden says, Autumn said that she wants some McDonald's. I said, and she was like, no, I said that to you. And I was like, one, you can't tell on your sister.

You know what I'm saying? Second of all, I feel like this is, I don't know what this is. But at the end of the day, we got food in the house. We got food in the pantry. We got food in the fridge. We got food in the deep freezer. Y'all can eat waffles. The girls just be trying to manipulate me.

It's just like, Daddy, you did it last time. I'm like, no, you don't be doing your mama like this. Don't get up off of me. You'll put your foot down. But that has nothing to do with anything we're about to talk about. That was super random. We just want to welcome to Whitbury's Dallas and Amanda Jenkins. How are you?

We're sitting there going, all we remember those days. Yon-Y is drive now. Yeah, we got 24, 18 to 24 are their ages. Two of them get married this year. Married. Yeah. The ages are 18, 24. 18 through 24, so 18, 20, 22, 24.

Y'all got grownups. Y'all got them out the way. How did it? How does that feel to have, because I, you know, people say, it goes by so fast. How does it feel to now see your babies as like adults? How is that experience? Awesome.

I love it. Yeah, I mean, it's great in that we don't, aren't going through some of the things that you just described. I like them. Like where they're, We like hanging out now. It's more fun. It's not,

it's not chore-based. Yeah. Because my son, he's like dedicated to pooping on himself. It's like he's dedicated to it. He goes in the corner to do it. He just, where they just go to the corner,

they just kind of go in the corner. Just in the corner just, you don't want to go to the potty. Oh, no. It's like it's, yeah, eat some broom juice.

It's like, I don't, I don't miss, I don't miss that. Yeah. And the other thing we don't miss is some of the, the, the hard nose,

the thing, like, because sometimes you like, I wouldn't mind going to McDonald's right now. But that's not good for them right now in this moment. They need to learn how to get their own food. And the girls, they got that way of manipulating you. Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's like the sad face, the puppy face. It's the dad's, yeah. Making you feel guilty. The daughter just kind of going, come on this. I'm sorry. But we're past that phase two. So now we've done the hard work. We've done the discipline.

And now it's a chance to just watch them thrive and grow. So that is fun. Or struggle or suffer. All the things that have. Having adult children, but it's not disappointed. Then you see them going through the things that you can't necessarily fix for them or take care of for them. And that becomes difficult too. So it never stops being difficult.

Yeah. My pastor said that, you know, early in years you're a counselor. And then you kind of become a consulting when they get older. Yeah. And so I'm not really looking forward to that with girls because, yeah. But you're going to be tired for about 20 straight years. I appreciate that. You know, that's why I put concealer on my bags.

One of the things that's also cool is that I have watched several episodes of the children with our children. Three of them don't care. It's not because it's not a good show. It's because they don't understand. Yeah, yeah, they're young. The oldest one, she loved the episode with Jesus making all the stuff with the kids. She was so invested in that show.

And it was like it opened up a lot of discussion and conversation. I just want to talk about all the stuff. I want to talk about creating it. I want to talk about the imagination behind it. I want to talk about the theology about it. I might touch on the criticism, not because I want to be provocative, but because I want to have all this conversation.

So if you guys haven't caught on yet, we have the creators of the show here, the Chosen, that has blessed many of us. We actually played it in the movie theater last year. Did they know that? I'm sure Megan told us. So you guys hosted a screening and it allowed you to dive into the word together. We did a Q&A with the crowd afterwards.

It was great. God using y'all. I feel to be used. Honestly, here's why it feels great is because it wasn't always the case. I mean, like, this was birthed out of failure. My career, I had this big failure in my career where one of my movies just completely bombed. And I genuinely didn't know if I would make another movie or television show again. And it was in that moment where I truly, it's a long story, but where I got to the place where I was okay with, if that's what God wanted, I'm like, for the first time of my life, I'm genuinely just want to be in your will.

I genuinely just want to be providing five loaves and two fish. And then if you multiply, that's up to you. And when I genuinely got there, I think that's when he said, now you're ready for the chosen. How did that happen? You had a dream, you had a vision, you had a prophetic word. How does... We're Baptist from the Midwest. So never mind.

You were reading the scriptures. This would be a great show. God spoke to him through the reading of the word. He speaks in multiple ways. Yes, yes. No, but it's a little bit of both, actually. She's the one, she gets... She's a little bit more spirit conversant than I am.

But I had a movie that came out and it just completely bombed and you know it right away. Like on a Friday afternoon, the numbers come in from the East Coast. It's a bit of a formula. You kind of know what's projected. They immediately say, this is how much it'll make tonight,

this is how much it'll make this weekend, and this is how much it'll probably make for the life of it. There's some exceptions every now and then, but it's pretty much a math equation. And so I'm at home on a Friday afternoon, confused and crying and praying and just because, and here's why, because there were many things that led to that moment

that were so clearly God ordained and doors opening miraculously and whatnot. I was so convinced that it was God's calling and God's plan to do this project. And your biggest break that you got into that point? Yeah, and I was partnered with these big, I'm producers in Hollywood and a studio and everything. And I'd done other projects before, but I hadn't gotten the legitimacy and the affirmation that I was getting from doing it with these big Hollywood producers. And that was my drug of choice was affirmation. And so when it fails, you go, oh, well, God's not the author of failure.

So therefore, he must not have been involved in this. And I missed everything. I missed my calling. And it was a little bit of a word that came to Amanda in that moment where God pushed on her. This is why I said it's a little bit of both. Pushed on her to the word. It said, read the story of the feeding of the 5,000. And she just said, I don't know why.

I don't know what. It's not an audible voice, but it's like God is pushing me on, in my. heart to read the story of the Feeding of the 5000. And he keeps also putting this phrase in my head, I do impossible math. Wow. So you're like, okay, let's go to the world, let's see what it has. So I've heard the story of the feeding of the 5,000 hundreds of times, but we're reading through it. And the one thing we noticed that I hadn't noticed before, and this was what got us excited in the moment, which I'll get back to, was when Jesus was told by the disciples that the people are hungry and we need to send them home to get food. He didn't say, oh, shoot, I didn't think about that.

He goes, no, no, we can't send them home. They're so hungry, they'll faint along the way. Why were they so hungry? Well, because he'd been talking for three days. It was his fault. He's the one who brought them to that place of hunger and desperation. And that the only thing left, he said, well, we can't even send them home. They'll faint. The only thing that would satisfy that hunger is something that only he could do. Yeah. That's good. So you've got to teach this word, sir. See in the black church with those shoes.

We talk back to you now. Yeah. So in that moment, we're going, okay, so Jesus not only wasn't absent in the struggle, in the problem that we're like what we're in now, just because we're struggling, just because we're hungry, just because we're desperate, doesn't mean that God's absent. was abstinent, and he actually caused it.

Jesus actually brought them to that place. And so then along with that phrase that God put on her heart, I do impossible math, like, oh, yeah, okay. So we know what's going to happen. This math equation that Hollywood's so proud of having figured out is going to be upended. And the numbers, the box office numbers for my movie are going to turn around and it's going to be this great miracle. And that night it didn't happen. The numbers got worse. It was almost like God was saying, no, no, that's not the part.

That's not the impossible math part. So that night, I'm up doing what I do pretty well is analyze. And I study results and I study what lessons can we learn. And I was pretty proud of myself because I'm doing a 15-page memo analyzing everything that went wrong, analyzing all the decisions that were wrong. And I'm proud of myself because I'm taking the blame for a lot of it. I'm not saying, oh, the schedule was wrong, the marketing was bad. It was like, no, no, I thought this would work.

I thought people wanted to see this, and they didn't. And I've cost some people some money, and I need to own that. But I'm analyzing what I did wrong, said I never make that mistake again. The numbers didn't add up. And it's very, you know, it's your self-esteem struggling in that moment, too. Like, it's embarrassing. Like, I was out there publicly, and now I'm, now I'm looking at. my wounds. And I blew this opportunity that I had with these big Hollywood producers because

they wanted to do more movies with me because the movie had tested really well. Like the optimism was really high. And then it just tanked. And they were like, all right, we'll do other projects now without you, you know. And at 4 o'clock in the morning, while I'm finishing up my memo, this message just pops up on my computer screen. And it's a Facebook message from someone I'd never met. I got by the name of Alex. We had spoken maybe a couple times in the past on Facebook, but I'd never met him. Didn't say hi, didn't say, how's it going? Just goes, remember, your job is not to feed the 5,000. Your job is only to provide the loaves and fish. And that's why when you're like, was it a prophetic word? Was it a dream? Was it a vision? A little bit. A little bit of something.

That sounds prophetic to me. Yeah, exactly. Well, because it didn't come directly to me. I had to come to her and then the guy on the other side of the world. We got you. We got you. We got you. Yeah, yeah. So I'm like, so I didn't respond with high either. I just go, what are you doing it for in the morning? Because I'm now, I'm thinking, did my computer record things that I've said today? Because I didn't tell anybody that we've been spending the whole day trying to figure out why God had us in the feeding of the 5,000. And he says, well, I'm in Romania right now. I'm visiting a friend and, you know, I'm on the other side of the world. And I said, before I respond, can I just ask you why you told that to me? He goes, oh, that wasn't me. God told me to tell you that. And in that moment, I genuinely, like my life changed in that moment because, number one, I felt this true sense of God's presence and that he was in this process. And I didn't know exactly what the outcome would be.

But this Alex guy told me later, he goes, yeah, I was walking home. He decided to look up the results of the movie because he liked it, saw that it was a failure. and he's like, oh, that's a bummer. And he just felt God again just as clearly as it was for Amanda, this powerful, like, tell Dallas. It's not his job to feed the 5,000. It's just to provide the loaves and fish. Wow.

And he's like, no, I don't want to do that. I barely know the guy. That's a condescending thing to say to somebody when they're probably... That's a risk. Yeah, they're upset. They barely knows me. He's probably licking his wounds, no doubt. And God just kept pounding on him, like, say it, say it, say it.

And he's like, well, all right, it's four in the morning over there. You know, he won't get it. And he sends it off and gets this immediate response, you know. And quick, quick flash forward when we filmed the feeding of the 5,000 sequence several years later, the night before I was walking through this empty field knowing that the next day it was going to be filled by 4,000 people. And I'm praying and I'm thinking back to this gentleman and I'm like, oh my gosh, he needs to be part of this. He needs to see this. And so we flew him out and he was able to, the first time we met was on the field for the feeding of the 5th family. That is very powerful.

That's so special. So anyway, I'm like, in that moment, not only am I really appreciating that God has been present in this, even in the failure. But that concept of your job is to bring your five loaves and two fish. And when you hand it to God and he deems it worthy of acceptance, the transaction is over. The multiplication part is up to him.

Imagine if that kid had gone home and said to his parents, mom, dad, I fed 5,000 people today. That had been ridiculous, of course. So God does the multiplication. But the cool thing is he could have just caused loaves and fish to magically appear in everyone's laps. He said, no, no, I need food. Someone bring me something to work with. He has us involved in everything that we don't need him for so that the only thing left is what only he can do.

Right? So he's still like, we don't need God to make five loaves and two fish for us. We can do that ourselves. The miracle part is up to him. but everything up to that point that we can do, he will ask of us. That's great. You know, it's the same thing with, like, the raising of Lazarus, right?

He could have just had the stone roll away and Lazarus walk out and the wrappings just kind of come off, but he's like, all right, someone, it's such an interesting. He goes, guys, someone needs to go roll the stone away. Yeah. Like what, you can raise the dead, but you need someone else to roll the stone? Yeah, that's good. He wants us to participate and do our part. So, but that concept of not.

not thinking about or focusing on or being even responsible for the result is very foreign to me. I guess he was writing a 15-page memo. Yeah. His responsibility. I heard. That was thorough. Yeah. I was a little OCD a little bit.

Yeah. And so that's something that I would take pride in as a leader, especially. I mean, I think most type A's, most entrepreneurs are problem solvers and not necessarily afraid of mistakes, just wanting to make sure we learn from them. And so. I have a question there, though. I think it can't, let me rephrase it this way. You said that one struggle you had was affirmation, right?

A reality y'all are walking in is that God has exceedingly and abundantly above multiplied the fish and the five loaves. It's millions and millions of streams and watches and theaters and all the stuff. So how do you work through fighting to recognize that it's still him? while at the same time still saying, no, we did a good job. You know what I'm saying? Like not walking in false humility,

but walking in actual humility. How do you work through that? Right. So that's where I talk about the tone of God's voice in the moment. So in that moment, his tone was, oh, Dallas, it's not your job to feed the 5,000. It's just to provide the loaves and fish.

Yeah. Just provide your five loaves and two fish. Yeah. Which then encourage me to take some of that weight off and to focus on those five loads and two fish, which is what allowed me to be open to the idea of doing a short film for my church's Christmas Eve service about the birth of Christ from the perspective of the shepherds.

And then when that short film got in the hands of some people and started to go viral, and they heard my idea for a TV show, and they said, you should raise the money through crowdfunding. And I said, that's ridiculous. That never works. It's what you see on Facebook when people are trying to raise money for their birthday and never quite, the bar never quite gets to the end.

Like, this is silly. And then it shadowed the all-time crowdfunding record and generated $10 million from 16,000 people for season one of a television show based on this little short film I did on my friend's firm in Illinois, 20 minutes from my house. Wow. Wow. So when that happens, you go, okay, clearly, again, this is my five loaves and two fish. The idea is crazy, but I'm not responsible for the result. Now, then, fast forward to as you're doing, all the box office success and the awards and all the things and the affirmation. and the legitimacy and Hollywood coming calling,

all that stuff happened when I stopped caring about it. But here's the best thing about it. God still says that same thing to me, but it's in a different tone of voice. It's your job is not to feed the 5,000. Your job is only to provide the loaves and fish, right? You go, yeah, yeah, I'm not the one who's multiplying. I'm not coming home to my parents and saying,

I fed 5,000 people today. There is no amount of success the chosen could have that would make me believe that I'm responsible for it. There's so many things that are happening. And I'm just, I think one of the keys for me in this has been, I really have recognized from day one, like, I'm not this good. Like, I'm pretty good. I'm making a show that I'm proud of.

I've worked really hard. He's using your gifts. I've worked really hard. And I've studied and I've done my work. And the team is good. And the acting is, like, I'm proud of the show. But when you hear, when you're hearing from people in other countries who were watching it during COVID, who didn't even speak English and didn't even understand the language

because it had been translated yet. Yeah. And their kids who are like nine years old who I never expected to like it are loving it. And so these words that I'm so proud of writing, they're not even understanding. And yet God is changing their lives for the show. It should be pretty easy to actually not take credit for the multiplication. That's really good. That's really good.

And I want to go to the flip side of all of the success and what the success also may bring, which is spiritual warfare. Like I think about spiritual warfare a lot because it's a cost. to be effective, right? I think about the spiritual warfare we go through, of just teaching people how to defend the gospel because other religions, teaching people how to be married right way,

like the public slander or whatever. And I can only imagine the spiritual warfare that you guys went through, having affected millions of people with this show. So I would like to hear from both of you guys because, you know, it affects a family. Well, and to piggyback on how he stays in this space, I actually was kind of concerned that as we started to really take off as a show, I was concerned

some of the old stuff was going to come back, some of the narcissism tendencies and stuff. And it just didn't, largely because he's, he is a little bit one and done when it comes to lessons. Like he really got it. He was really broken. And so it really did, like from a fundamental place, it changed him. But the other piece was, and I don't know where spiritual warfare begins and just what God is, sovereign overends, right? Where they're how those work together.

But we have been kind of crushed since the beginning season after season. So we- From day one. It's like the moment we chose to do this. It was like the medical emergencies in two months were more than we'd been, had 20 years combined. The marriage counselor on speed dial, you know, like all of a sudden, like for, why do we not like each other for a full month?

You know, like all of a sudden- Why are we so angsty, you know, things, just things, that one after the other chronic illness one of our kids is chronically ill we had another kid who went through a really traumatic thing and and those things keep you so desperate that there isn't really this time i don't know if we if everything in our personal lives was going really well maybe we would struggle a little bit more with that but we are kept so low that we are you know we are not um doing this you're not making this show from a high place that's good and you'd think that as the show has grown that it would get easier. And we just finished filming season six, which is the

crucifixion season. And it was without a close second, the hardest thing we've ever done. And then on a personal level, the illness, the disease, the things that have happened just even within our own family, but also multiple people involved in the show. It's been, we've experienced that too. And I think it's the sovereignty of the Lord. You know, I love what Tim Keller said. I'm probably going to butcher it. But, you know, something is even a trial or test based on how you respond. You know, and I think that, you know, as you, the Lord gives you more and gives you more responsibility, sometimes in his sovereignty, he has to make things hard to remind you one

that it's all coming from him, right? Yeah. But also to refine, like, and reshape the character, you know, I don't think that if I would have gotten certain successes on my book would have did well, if I didn't have some trials, my character probably would have struggled. I would have been haughting in some ways. So God has this way of like keeping you low. And I just want to read a text to affirm this because I think a lot of times anyone who is doing anything in ministry, creatively,

creatively, artistically, intellectually, whatever, when you go through a certain kind of struggle or trial, especially ones that feel continual and it feels unnecessary, you can get discouraged where either you want to give up or you think you think God doesn't like it. you like you like you know we have just a misunderstanding of how god deals with useful people yeah and so the verse in john 15 says every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit and so a lot of times the trial is evidence that you're fruitful yeah and the lord's intention is not to crush you but to actually help you be more fruitful and that just requires a deeper level of dependence like you said right And I know that smart theologians have debated this for centuries of, you know, God's providence in difficulties.

Like, does he cause difficult things or does he just allow them? Or is, you know, you hear all the time, God wants good things for you. Oh, this trial in your, if that's not from God, you need to celebrate what is from God. And so I'm not going to try to, you know, get in the way of someone's relationship with their pastor. I just know that for us, it would feel, I think, even worse to think that God was just kind of hands off. And these things were happening. He's like, this is the way of the world. This is something.

Like, I've just seen too much. I've seen too much and seen too much benefit from the trial. And I think, again, that story, the story of the feeding of the 5,000 where, you know, Jesus brought them to the place where they were so hungry, they couldn't walk. Yeah. And that was his doing. And so we just see his hand in the trials far too often to just believe that it's only him just kind of. Yeah, I think his hand is in all of the trials. Yeah.

So we believe deeply in God's providence. Then that also makes you, though, you know who to talk to about it. And you go to him and you go, okay. I do believe you're the one who's behind this. So why? come on like I'm already sacrificing for this season I'm already we're already dealing with this why we need yet this other thing like what is it that we that you need us to to glean from it yeah and you go into James and you try to count it all joy and it's not

not easy yeah but it it always always always always like without exception um has proven we look back on it yeah and and real quickly guys I know sorry you were going to say something, but how God spoke to you in one of the trials we were going through with our kid saying, if you knew the full plan, you would agree with it. I mean, I love how you're talking about. That was like, that's past tense. This was just, like, I was really, just even up to this summer season six, I was just in a bad place.

It had been so many things, so many things. And I was just, I was asking, I was kind of pressing like, why this, why is, why more, Why we're already, we're not even recovered from the last thing. I'm grappling with the last thing. And as it turns out, in the last few months, he's been using the current thing to deal with the last thing where I was a little stuck. But he said, if you saw the whole plan, you would agree with it. And as we were heading into this crucifixion season where we're actually, you know,

depicting the crucifixion. And I'm watching our actors portray these different moments. And now we've seen the development of these characters. And we feel like we know John a little better. or we feel like we know Mary Magdalene a little bit better. And I'm thinking, gosh, the real people must have been so confused and perplexed to the point of near despair, but for the grace of God in that, in watching him die. I can't even imagine, like, because my questions that are based on nothing as horrible as Christ's crucifixion,

which are like, why this, why now? Why more? Why still? How can this be the right thing? If you knew the whole plan, you would agree with it. There's something that just pulled me so back from the brink because, of course, that's true. Of course that's true. And then that's what you see play out.

So I feel like all of that even continues to answer the question of how are you grappling with spiritual warfare while at the same time staying low. And it's like, wow, we're fielding so much theology. I'm just like a fire hose of experiencing these things on a real level. I'm so intrigued by the creative process of the chosen. Like, you know, I remember when we were just poets, one of our first, like, viral poems where this poem called The Fall, where we kind of did, I played Adam and she played Eve. And it was kind of a conversation pre-fall, like, after the fall. You remember that?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's a TVT. That's a deep cut. Right? And I love the creative license that you guys take with the show. Like, it's certain things I was like, man, if I ever speak to you, I'm going to ask you, like, why did you choose? to make Matthew like kind of on a spectrum.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, why is Peter, you know, like, why did you choose? This Peter got muscles. This Peter got muscles. Because these other Peters be looking little, you know. A little, you know. Yeah, I said, but I was like, oh, that actually makes sense. It makes sense.

No, they were all. Because you were a fisherman. Yeah, no, they were all. And their diet was all, like, clean, biblical, you know, like fish and hummus and all that kind of stuff. But they were sinewy. So I'm two questions. I don't know they had Tiziki back then.

It's a two-prime. question. The first question is what what inspires your creative process? And then that second question is I'm pretty sure you guys have criticism. Anytime you do anything with Christians, because you're going to have criticism about the creative process. I mean, we got like, we got a critique for like having a conversation. This is not in the Bible, you know, is I think God allows us to have creative process if we're not, you know, being, being heretical of the world. So what inspires it and then what kind of criticism you guys probably got? And then how did you deal with it? We don't get any criticism.

Just totally clean. When you do something this wonderful. I think you bear false witness. She's like, you're about to get criticized. I'll give you some. I'm happy to. So the creative process for this show was, and it speaks to what you're saying, because I love the Bible. I believe, I mean, I was a Bible major. I was raised in a Christian. home where we stand on the authority of God's word. So, but even as a kid, I was a kid in Sunday school who was like, because I think I have a storytelling mindset. My dad's an author. He wrote the left behind books. He's written over 200. You don't have a storytelling mindset. You said, your dad wrote left behind? Yeah. Jerry Jenkins.

Your dad wrote left behind? Did you all know that? Yeah. I never had a clue. Jerry Jenkins, yeah, I'm Dallas Jenkins. Oh, it's in your blood. Oh, my goodness. Because them books made Moody Bible some money. Are you crazy? Wow. I did not know that.

That man is reading all up over Moody. Okay. I'm sorry. I just love that. I'm sorry. I love to see gifts. I love to see gifts pass down to generation. Generational.

Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't live with my dad until I was 18. And then when I was 20 years old, I found all his stack of poems. Wow. And I'm like, you write poetry? He was like, yeah, I wrote poetry my whole life. And I'm like, and here I am like this spoken word artist.

And so I just love that. But yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but I was, so yeah, so yeah, so my dad's a storyteller. Obviously, I inherited that gene. But in Sunday school, I was like, I would hear the story of Jesus did this. And then he did that. And then he went and I was like, hold on saying it. Meaning like kind of like miracle to miracle.

Yeah, can miracle to miracle. Sermon to sermon. Just between. Yeah, and I'm going, wait a minute. Like Mark. Yeah. And it's like, and in, and then. And then this happened.

And I'm like, well, wait a minute. What happened to the guy that he, you know, like, I want to hear about how he got there and how he then, what happened afterwards? And what must have been like to sit around the fire with Jesus? And I was the one who would make jokes even when I was like 10 years old about Jesus growing up and having siblings. and, um, you made a perfect guy joke. Like he's the,

he, or like the girl who meets Jesus and comes home to her parents. He's like, mom, I have met the perfect guy. Literally. He's perfect.

Or the siblings going, mom, you always take his side. Jesus can do no wrong. And, and, uh, and it's literally true. And the mom's like, well,

he can't, I mean, it's true. So I'm sorry. You don't know what to tell you. But I was always thinking that way. And like, what would it have been like to be sitting around

with the disciples and eating food Jesus around the campfire late at night and talking about this and wrestling through with this. Yeah. And so as you grow up and you, you grow up to love God's word, you do get a little bit, this is especially true in Protestant evangelical circles, you do get a little bit skeptical or nervous about artistic renderings of these things because that's something the Catholics do. You know, the Catholics have idols and icons.

And, well, we don't want to do that. and we don't want to take focus off of the authority of God's word. And so Protestant evangelicals have always been a little bit uncomfortable with anything other than the word, right? Wow. So that was always, that was the environment I was raised in, and yet I had this longing to, like, explore these other things. And then I started to realize, too, when pastors get up, they don't just read the Bible.

No, it's a sanctified imagination. And then they go, all right, I'm going to sit down now because God's word is sufficient, as it says in his word. It's sufficient. You don't need anything else. I'm just going to read the Bible and sit down. Well, of course, we have commentaries and illustration. And yes, even some artistic imagination.

They'll say, now, picture this. You're sitting around here. Now, at this time during the Jewish, you know, the occupation of Rome, they would have been experiencing. And he's saying things that aren't directly from Scripture, but we know are true. So finally, when we got to the place of doing this show and I sat down with my co-writers, we're starting to plot things out. Of course, we start with scripture. We start with.

Who are the characters we want to focus on them? most. What are the stories that we think are the most cinematic that are going to lend themselves to multi-season storytelling? Okay. And then we wrote on the word, literally in big words on the wall, authenticity. That's good. Like we are going to go for authenticity. Even when something's not a capital F fact, it's going to be capital T true. That's good. Does that make sense? Like it's like, even if it's not directly from scripture, it should be scriptural. Yeah. So the other term we come up with is plausible. So even if we don't know that this happened or even, it should at least be plausible. It doesn't contradict. Based on the whole of scripture. And it doesn't take away what

happened. Exactly. So the phrase that I use is we don't do anything that violates the character or intentions of Jesus and the Gospels. That's good. So when you see Jesus talking to someone else in words that aren't directly from scripture, it should still feel scriptural. It should still feel like his character, should still feel like the intentions of God. Now, I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. I'm not going to bat a thousand. So I say all the time before the show even starts, when you sit down and watch the show, there's a disclaimer. This is viewers are encouraged to read the Gospels.

This is based on the true stories of the Gospels. And I say, look, I am not God. Jonathan is not Jesus. The show is not the Bible. Your Bible has not changed since the Chosen started. We're not adding to it because we're not scripture. That is scripture. This is, like you said, sanctified imagination.

I hope. I won't bat a thousand. I'm a flawed man using the imperfect medium television to tell a perfect story. This is a really well-done church play. Yeah, yes. We love church plays. A million dollar one, yeah. Multi-million dollars. Anyway. And with, too, that, by the way, like with a board of people who are also

looking over scholars, you know, we have so many checks and balances. Read our scripts. That was another question. Yeah. So they read the scripts. We have a conservative of Bible scholars, New Testament scholar, a Messianic Jewish rabbi, Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic, but it sounds like a joke, but they read the scripts just to tell us, A, you know, to make sure that we're biblically, historically, culturally accurate. But then if there's any theological landmines, we might be stepping over, even if they say, like, they give us either, you know, red light, yellow light, green light. Red light means we can't endorse this, we cannot support this, we believe as a contradiction

to the truth of who God is. That's only happened once, and it was a cultural storyline that we adjusted. But otherwise, even with yellow lights, it's, okay, this is, this might not be settled science. It might not be something that is provable, but it's, it's, just be, beware that there will be some people who don't like this. And here's what we think and yada, yada. So we, so anyway, we have a lot of safety nets in place. but once we have accomplished that goal of not going outside the boundaries of plausibility and authenticity, then we do feel free to imagine what it must have been like to be with Jesus

and then to see Jesus through the eyes of these flawed and perfect people. And so we approach it from that side. Now, we also, we start with the stories in scripture and then work our way backwards. So just using, you mentioned Matthew. Matthew I thought that was brilliant So I mentioned this to Megan when I was Megan Ashley

because I was just on her podcast And she also asked about Matthew Like it's one of the first questions we get Like all right We love Matthew, what's a deal? And I said this I said If there's a Mount Rushmore

Of decisions that we've made That have been most Kind of responsible For I think the response people Have had to the show Matthew The decision to portray Matthew As being on the spectrum

Is one of those four when we were doing what we call a character description where we're starting with the stories from the Gospels and then we go to the characters, who do you want to be the main characters? Matthew, he's a tax collector. We think that's really interesting. You would have been hated by the Jews

for betraying their people, disrespected by the Romans for being Jewish. That's compelling. Jesus walks by his booths says, follow me, he just drops everything and follows him. There had to have been a line of people waiting. Just such an interesting thing to explore. So we pick him.

We start doing his character profile. What do we know about him from scripture? We always start with what we know. He's a numbers guy, right? Because he does tax collecting. He's a facts guy. The first chapter of his book is a genealogy. Three sections of 14 names apiece.

It's a lot, right? So he's very committed to facts. You just said that's a lot. Parents of children on the spectrum often say that. This is a lot. It's a lot. You got a lot coming at me. He chose a profession that made him an outcast, right?

And he willingly chose that profession. And I have so much experience in special needs community. We have a daughter who's autistic. Thirdborn is autistic. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, I recognize some of this. This is very familiar.

Numbers, facts, outcast, you know, likes to be alone, you know, thing. This is interesting. What if Matthew was on the spectrum? Now, we don't know this for a fact, of course. But it's plausible. Yeah. It's not impossible. Without violating anything.

Yeah. And we just thought that would be, and I remember thinking at the time, two things are going to happen because of this. One, families of people on the spectrum, people on the spectrum themselves are going to feel something they've never seen in a Bible project before that God calls them too, right? You just don't see that in Bible shows. But second, this is a very humanizing thing.

And the genre of biblical storytelling is so not very human. You ever feel like you see Jesus or disciples in stained glass windows or statues? And then you watch a movie and it still feels like they're stained glass windows or statues. They feel medieval or something. Yeah, presented. And they're typically white. European. That's what I love.

You guys did a do a really good job of humanizing, like bringing human beings to life. Yeah, I probably got to know them. Because I have a brother that's, both of my brothers are on the spectrum, but my younger brother's autistic. And just their relationship with just people is different. Yeah. Right. And so just seeing Matthew in the story, you know, he really don't have the social cues that a lot of other people, the other disciples had. And it's just seeing that.

So you're saying that's probably why he chose to be a, Well, I mean, it could have been. I mean, I don't know. We don't know. We don't know. Well, what I'm saying. And so in the, the creativity seems very intentional. Yes.

And so in the show, um, I would contend, and we've heard this from people all over the world, that even just as early as episode one and then, but particularly in episode two, when you see this start to play out and you go, oh, he, Matthew is on the spectrum, you immediately go, oh, that's what this show. This is, this is a human show. This is about human beings. Yeah. This isn't about stained glass windows.

We've heard before, someone said to me once, I've always seen in Bible projects three disciples. There's Peter, he's the famous one. There's Judas, he's the betrayer. And then the other 10 are all one. They all look the same. Because Bartholomew, we don't know nothing about that. Exactly, exactly.

So they're all one. And so we're not humanizing them. They're already human. We're just revealing and exploring the humanity that's always been there and seeing what it would have been like 2,000 years ago. by doing that, it immediately takes away what I would consider to be the inauthenticity of these kind of presented versions of these stories and can lead you to believe they're religious figures. Yeah, that's good. And when they're religious figures, there's a bit of a distance.

That's good. And there's even a distance that comes when Jesus is portrayed as a religious figure. We hollow him and revere him so much, which is good, that sometimes it can be distancing. How can I approach a perfect God, right? And this man who's so holy and righteous, I can't tangibly relate to or be intimate with him. And by seeing something as simple as Jesus washing his own wounds in the stream and brushing his teeth and making his own food and laughing with his friends and at the wedding, he's dancing with his friends and doing a favor for them because his mom asked him to. And you start to go, oh, this isn't detracting from his divinity. It's actually putting a spotlight on it and making me even more grateful that the creator of the universe became one of us for this time and felt what we felt and just didn't sin.

he is, he was a human like, those are the kinds of things. And by portraying Matthew as autistic, yes, it started with scripture. And we, we definitely infuse it with scripture. But it's, it's a humanity that you typically see in artistic portrayals. That's good. Yeah. I was, I was going to ask the question related to the casting of Jesus, just because I feel like, we all love the passion. We've all watched the passion. But the Jesus and the chosen is a different, Jesus. And it's not to say that either Jesus is a misrepresentation of Jesus. It's just a different angle. Because I feel like the Jesus and the chosen is like, do you ever read Gentle and Lolly? I think it's Dane Orleans. Or in West Inde-Olland-Lowling.

I don't mess his name up. One of the Orleans. Sorry, I just did a conference with him on a West Coast. Yeah, yeah. I know that I haven't read it, but I know. He has a book called Gentle and Lowly. That gives you a perspective of Christ as like, no, I am gentle and lowly. Take my yoke upon you. my yoke is easy it is light and when i watch the chosen i see like oh unapproachable jesus but not approachable in the sense i could just be sinning and be reckless but a jesus that like oh like he cracking jokes with it's like jesus duke yeah he created laughter so i suspect he would laugh you understand what i'm saying or he over here talking to john the baptist and he's like hey man chill out like or but when he's talking to the pharisees it's this anger that's right that's right

righteous. So I think to see that kind of Jesus has really framed even the way I pray in some ways. How do you cast Jesus? Well, here's what's interesting. First of all, to your point, I 100% agree that just by seeing Jesus laugh with his friends, you go, we've had some people go, of course. Because you mentioned, I'm so glad you brought up. his conversation with John the Baptist. Because there were some people uncomfortable with this scene in season two where John the Baptist and Jesus are kind of bickering a little bit

and telling stories and referencing David and kind of just as cousins going at each other a little bit. And they were like, well, that's a little uncomfortable. None of my Jewish friends or Jewish scholars disagreed with any of that. They were like, that's exactly how they talk. That's exactly how we talk. We argue, but it's not like contentious. It's just how we

communicate. And especially family. and Jewish rabbis, when they teach, they tell stories, they sit down, they laugh, they tell jokes, they ask questions of their students to help them engage. So this kind of, this portrayal that we've seen of Jesus or this image that we have of him as solemn and formal and as just always kind of dropping truth bombs and then letting, they go, that's not at all how it would have been in it. It certainly wouldn't have attracted children. It wouldn't have attracted crowds of thousands like it did. It's we've kind of, I don't want to use the term whitewashed, but I think we've almost kind of European-I,

or westernized or religiousized, religiousized, religionized. You can make a word in our show. Yeah, as long as you say it, cool. Yeah, exactly. But we can, we've done that to Jesus in a way that the first century Jews who were reading the Gospels would not have come up with the portrayal of Jesus that we've seen. They would have known.

Very interesting. And even some of the metaphors he told and the stories that he told, the things like moving mountains and stuff like that are all popular references that he was drawing on to communicate. So casting someone to play that role, it actually, a little over 10 years ago, I did a short film for my church about the crucifixion

from the perspective of the two thieves. So I'd heard a sermon, again, a pastor, unpacking a passage of scripture. Name is Kyle Idleman from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville. And we just happened to be attending church that weekend, and he was unpacking this story of the fact that, this one thief on the cross goes from mocking Jesus to wanting to be with him

in paradise within like two or three verses so you're like what what must have happened in the course of those hours to change his mind right and the so I did a short film kind of seeing exploring the life of these two thieves and then

so the first 20 minutes of the short film we see their lives and then they get arrested and put it on the cross and then the last five seven minutes of the short film are they encounter Jesus on the cross. So I'm casting for the two thieves because they're the main characters.

And I wasn't really spending much time on the casting of Jesus because it was only about five minutes. And I realized that had a bit of a problem because we got these really great actors for the two thieves and all the people auditioning for Jesus were just horrible.

Like if any of them are listening, I'm sorry, but it was... They literally did not know what they were doing. But they were just... All the good actors were auditioning for the two leads, right? Including Jonathan Rumi, who auditioned for one of the thieves.

And I had these two great guys for the thieves, and I thought, Jonathan, I'm going to have him audition for Jesus because there's this tenderness to him that I really like that came through in his audition. So he does the scene in this audition. I'm watching it on video from, I'm in the Midwest and it's coming from L.A. And within 10 seconds, I'm like, oh, my goodness.

This is... You could see all the things you were describing about him. The tenderness, but masculine. Yes. It's not like a weak. He doesn't come off soft. Yeah, he's not weak. And yet strength, but not toxic, you know, domineering strength.

I love the way you made him talk to the Pharisees. Yeah. Oh, yeah, no, no, he brings it. He brings it. He brings it. But it matters when he does because you've seen him also be compassionate. So no one can truly hijack different parts of Jesus' personality like we like to do today. Right.

Wow. And we're in tribes of, you know, you might be drawn to the justice part. of Jesus and you want to convenient leave out the compassion part or you're drawn to the compassion part but you want to leave out the tough stuff. I came here to divide. I came here. I demand that you pursue righteousness and holiness and yet, yada. So all that to say, when an actor can inhibit a lot of those things and Jonathan, within just seconds, I was like, this is, this is extraordinary. So I cast him. And then when we were filming and we're filming the scenes on the cross and a rock Corey in Elgin, Illinois, freezing weather.

And it's this small little thing. I'm saying, I honestly said, I said, this is the best portrayal of Jesus I've ever seen in just a few minutes. And I've seen them all. I've seen all the movies and all the miniseries. And I love the passion of the Christ too, but I'm like, this is, this is more nuanced, right? It's richer.

Yeah. And so then we started doing every year for my church for our Good Friday services, vignettes, like five-minute vignettes. So we were in many ways, I didn't know it at the time, kind of doing a trial run for the portrayal of Jesus. And they'll never forget this. On one Good Friday, we did a scene where the disciples are in hiding. Jesus has died, and they're in hiding, and they're wrestling with what's going on. And can you believe it?

I guess he must not be the Messiah because he died. You can't be the Messiah now if he's dead. And Peter has this memory of him sitting around the fire with Jesus, and they're all telling jokes. and I remember writing this scene, and two of the disciples are arm wrestling. And Andrew ends up losing to Thaddeus in this arm wrestling match. And they're all kind of enjoying and laughing about it. And John says, I can't believe that Andrew lost. And Jesus says, even I didn't see that coming.

And I remember writing that line and thinking, this is funny. And I told her the joke, and she's like, oh, boy, I don't. It was for church. Right now. He's like, I don't know how that's going to go. Jesus making a joke about his divinity is going to fly. We're just not sure. It's funny, but. Libyans 2.5, they're saying he was limited. Yeah. But I'm like, but he's joking. He's obviously like making a joke about his divinity.

I think anyone who has a sense of humor can recognize that he's saying he's, the joke is funny because he's divine. It was just that we don't, Jesus has never told a joke. I've never seen Jesus tell a joke. So let's give it a pause. Yeah, there's no precedent for us. So I'll never forget in the, in the crowd, there's several thousand people in the, audience during this Good Friday service. And when Jesus said, even I didn't see that coming, the laughter in the room was so pure. And it was almost also this laughter of relief. That's good. Like, of course he would have told jokes. Like, they'd just never seen that before.

Yeah. And I remember then going like, yeah, we're on to something with this. Like, there's something here. And this was a church, I'm part of a church, a very, very Bible-based church. So this is, this is a crowd that could have easily gone, well, that's not in the Bible. But this was, it was an absolute joy to see him do that. Your hard job, he was like, whoo. Yes. And I was like, great.

So those, we had several years of that. And so then when I did the short film about the birth of Christ, from the perspective of the shepherds. And what's funny is Jonathan wasn't in that one, because it was about the birth of Christ. But I remember when that led to this crowd fund and then we had a chance to do this show, I called him up.

I'm like, you want to put the sandals back on? Because we got an opportunity to do a show. Wasn't going to be anyone else. We did not want to go back into casting. So Jonathan was the first person cast, of course, because we'd seen him be able to do the suffering on the cross, the joking with his friends. Yeah.

We also portrayed a scene with him and Nicodemus on the roof. Awesome. I love that episode, yeah. And his combination, Jonathan's combination of tenderness but also strength. He's a good actor. Yeah, he's a really great actor. He's talented. And he was called for a time.

is this? I have a question. Like, so it's kind of in the same vein with the creative license or whatever, but you're obviously a storyteller, a creative. But this is ministry. You're ministry, especially in the creative license bars, because I love episodes like, it's so many, but I love episodes like Peter, the wrestle that Peter is going through when his wife is pregnant.

Yes. Right? And he kind of misses out on that because he was with Jesus. And he sees Jesus doing all of these things for other people. But then he's disappointed that I'm actually out here not just serving you, serving with you. And you allow my wife to suffer. Yeah, because she has a miscarriage. Because she has a miscarriage, right?

And that's just ministry, you know. And so, like, explain, like, how much you think about ministering to people in the creative license. that you have, when you're writing these things, how much you're thinking about other people, how that plays into writing. I think this question also speaks to the question you asked earlier that I didn't answer yet, which is about sometimes the occasional controversy, is when my co-writers and I are writing scripts or Amanda's working on the Bible studies or devotionals, it would be easy to start thinking, how is this going to land, right?

is this going to change someone's life or teach something, or is it going to actually get criticized, right? And if I start to write in order to avoid criticism or gain praise, or yes, even write for the purpose of I'm going to try to impact this particular person, it can start to intrude on the process of what I'm really trying to do, which is I'm trying to please God, and I'm trying to capture his character, and I don't want to mess that up. So I've adopted a, and this may sound bad, but I think you'll understand,

is I don't think about the audience when I'm writing or directing. I really have to focus on making five good loaves and two good fish. And if I can make the best loaves and fish, if I can make the best, it's very hard to make a good television show. I mean, like, I love television. I watch a lot of TV and movies. It's hard to make seven good seasons. Because even the shows you really love, occasionally you get to like season four,

and it's like, oh, they jump the shark or they went off the rail. or whatever. So yeah, it's hard to make a good TV show. So I want to make a good TV show first and foremost. I shouldn't say foremost. I want to, but that's my first step. Vocationally, that is your job. The first step is I have to make a good show. I have to honor the character of God and the intentions of Jesus and the Gospels. And that doesn't always please everybody. Yeah. And so I just can't start picking and choosing what I think is going to work better or worse or what's going to be more impactful or not. The heart change is ultimately going to come from the Holy Spirit. So I really, I'm not saying this is right for everybody,

but for me and for this show, I have to be remained focused on. I'm going to do the best that I can to honor God. And then what comes out of that is up to him. Now, in that process, you talked about, yes, Peter is being invited by Jesus to walk on the water. He steps out on the water. And in this process, he's wrestling with Jesus in the show.

where he's going, you're, you know, I'm right here in front of you. I'm following you. I'm doing the right things. And my wife is suffering and yet you're out here, you know, doing miracles for people in the Decapolis, right? That was an attempt on my part to capture again the totality of scripture, the totality of suffering, the totality of Jesus of Nazareth, yes, did a lot of healings. But he's not always standing here in the room, in physical form, just like a like a magician with a wand going, now you're here, now you're, you know, like Oprah, everyone gets a car. You know, like, we've got what we have to wrestle with these times where they're suffering in pain, even when the Messiah is right here in front of us.

Yeah. And so that was, um, for sure, I knew and am happy that there are people including us who have been in that spot of going, all right, I'll step out on the water. I don't know how long I'll stand because when the waves get tough, I, I, I might, I might look around. I might be tempted to look around, but I'm not happy right now. This doesn't feel good.

And it also, it just spoke to me. It blessed me. Because as a minister, I felt similar, you know, like, Lord, me and my wife,

we put our family out online to serve you, you know, with spiritual attacks, all the things. And sometimes when it doesn't feel like God is with you, but it gave me a reality check.

If you, like, it's a difference between walking, like, with the Lord and actually being with the Lord. Like, you were with the Lord in the flesh,

you know? And so I think, the way you kind of just gave his his story just so much light, I think that was, it blessed me. Yeah, no, and it blesses us to, I mean, the show and the Bible studies and the devotional books do, they're all rooted in scripture, but they also are informed by our own experience. Like they do come out of, like we've, Amanda has said this many times, we're not free from the lessons of each season. And so a lot of times when you see little James, who's played by an actor, who's handicapped and has scoliosis and thrubal palsy,

and I cast him to play a disciple of Jesus who's healing everybody. We have to wrestle with, okay, Jesus, how come you're healing others and not me? Well, we're dealing with that ourselves, with our own child, and our own family going like, okay, we're praying for it, we're asking for it, you're choosing to not heal, but we've seen you do it before, and we've seen you do it around it. Why?

And we wanted to put, I just didn't, want particularly casual viewers or people who maybe have had church hurt or people who don't know the stories to think that we're just telling the story of a magician who just walks around and makes everything okay. And so we really wanted to capture

the totality of scripture in those moments. So again, that's a long answer to your question, but I don't... It was great. I try to avoid thinking too much about a specific viewer and how it will land for them. I have to let God do that. What I heard of you honor the Lord first, and so in honor only the Lord, you serve people.

Well, and I'll say, too, the audience dynamic is so interesting because artists need an audience, right? So they're necessary. And we love our fans, and they actually participate. They'll come on these fan days, and every single season we've had these giant fan days. And so we actually got to know. Yeah, and there's our extras. And all that is amazing. And then there's this piece of, I want to say, in time.

entitlement to get to speak in to the work when they don't like something or, you know, or a choice that he's made. There was a, there was a pride flag controversy of a couple years ago where we don't have,

most of our people actually aren't Christians on set. And a lot of our cast and crew aren't believers, right? And one of our guys had a pride flag on his equipment. And anyway, it got pictured in BTS. And then there were a bunch of people that were behind the scenes. Behind the scenes, sorry, behind the scenes. And there were people that were upset. And that has become for us that piece of, I think, the longer that we're doing it,

but also the more, like, intimacy we have with the Lord as we're doing it, whether it's because he's pushing us on our faces or, you know, he's rescued us from that. That's typically the thing. I go down to my face and kick and scream and then he rescues me from that. Then we can do it again. It just loses its hold. The praise loses its hold. It's not even if people love something, it has less impact.

And if they hate something, it has less impact, or if they don't like a choice that we've made with our cast or crew or whatever it is. It's just, I don't know. It's almost like a superpower over time that you're like, I am creating and you can consume. But if I truly am doing this with the Lord for the Lord, we're prayerful. We know what went into that choice. It ceases, any of it ceases to have much impact, even the, even the, affirmation loses it. He's not as great as you say, he's not as

bad as you say. Yeah, the viewers appreciate. Like I've said to our viewers, like, you don't want me caring too much about what you think. Because then I'll start, like the same scene, like little James, uh, handicapped asking God, you know, asking Christ in that moment, like, why haven't I been

healed in Jesus talking about, well, you will be healed. It's just a matter of time. And sometimes the, the better story is that you're following me in spite of your struggling. Well, as many people has felt seen by that scene for the first time in their lives, people who were changed or people like Johnny Erickson Tata or Nicky, who were so loving that. There was also a group of people who were like, no, no, no, Jesus always heals. God always heals. God doesn't want any

suffering for your life. And so if I was like, well, I don't want to be controversial, so I need to skip over that. We miss out on some of that. Same thing with what she just mentioned, where our cast and crew, a lot of them aren't believers. We don't have a litmus test for you being on our cast or crew. And one of our gentlemen who, on his own personal equipment, had a little three-inch pride flag, a little patch and it ended up showing up on one over behind-the-scenes videos. And we had a group of people who were very upset that we would allow that. And so I go, I said in that moment, I said, I'm not doing this for you, right? Like I care about you as my viewer. Which is strange to say, because you're the consumer, but we're not.

But like, I'm, like, I have a responsibility to God first and also even more so to the people in our lives. like who are who we're ministering to and are we're taking through and walking through in this in this work together and so for every every the reason I know that you don't want me to be too concerned with how you think is because for every scene that you love there's a scene it's the same scene as bothering someone else and so if I go well I don't want to be controversial because they're bothered then you'll miss out on this and if I think if you get bothered by one thing you never know that that might be the same thing that has changed someone's life yeah and so That's why it's, I think, vital to just, again, hand to plow, five loaves, two fish.

Five loaves, two fish. That's why it's the name of our company, Five and Two Studios. It's a constant reminder of what we're responsible for. You mentioned how every season you guys have released Bible studies, which I was unfamiliar with. And I want to dig into the Bible study for season five. But before I do, I also wanted to ask the question of, in season five in particular, I really, well, I think all the seasons, but I really enjoy how the chosen, it's, there's theology, biblical theology and all the things, but there's also this

cultural descriptions that you give, because we Gentiles. I don't know if we look like it, but we are. And there was this. I had a feeling. Yeah, you know, there was this scene during the Passover, I don't know if it was the Passover, but they were like in the room and I don't know the word for it because I Googled it afterwards. But it was like, if you had, if you only did this, then we would do. It would have been enough, yeah. And there's a, what's the word for that? Yeah, you know.

Can you teach on that? Because to me, I said, we need to do this in all our churches. We need to do this at dinner. We need to teach our kids this. Like, because you won't read that in the scripture, but I'm sure if you're a Jew, that's just a part of your normal dialogue of worship. So like, help us out with that. Yeah, yeah.

No, that's one of the fun parts about this, is again in the Gospels written by three of the four Jewish people writing to a primarily Jewish audience. They're not including things that those people would have taken for granted. They would understand. So they're not saying, and by the way, this is the time of the Jewish festival. Like the readers already knew all that stuff. So some of us reading it now from a Western context, when we get a chance to explore the cultural context, and yes, the Jewish faith context of that time,

oh my goodness, it's so enriching. And so during Passover meals, the Jewish people do what's called the Dianu, which is they think back to the history of their people in God's faithfulness, and they say, and I'm not going to get all the words right, but for example, like, if you had taken us through the Red Sea

and not also given us the pillar of fire or whatever, it would have been enough. If you would have rescued us from Egypt and not taken us through the Red Sea, But see, it would have been enough. Black church did that. If it had not been for the Lord. I could have been dead alone, so sleeping in my grade.

Yes, yes. So we do in white churches too. It's just a little more tucked in. It's a little bit quieter. High sound. I was going to do it, but I don't want to fit nobody. It just would have been enough. Jesus.

Thank you. And Jesus is my portion. And it is enough. Yes, yes. Yeah, speaking to the microphone and stay in quietly and then sit down. And keep it under three minutes. Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Because, yeah, our service is only going to be 60 minutes. It's not going to be four hours. It's like a promised in mass. Y'all be in and act. In and out. But also, I come to, I've come to some of my, the churches of my black brothers and sisters, and not only did I miss lunch because it went so long.

I'm so hungry. But my hands hurt. How do you clap for so long? The same chorus, man. Over and over. It's the Holy Ghost. I'm like, I'm like, you got, your hands have to have caluses on them because I'm like, I'm like, it's painful. That's why they start slapping they die.

They got to move. Exactly. Oh, hilarious. Another thing I'm like, oh, we're standing up again. Okay. How dare you sit down when Lord. Look at the Lord not done enough for you. You can't stand for him.

Come on, Dallas. So I'm like, yeah. I hear better. I hear better. Yeah, yeah. I hear. No, I got a little bit of me. I got a little bit.

So. He came in with. I don't think of the guests, but he might feel like that. Hey, you better to speak over your husband. Your last name is Jenkins. He comes in a hundred. Jenkins, that sounds black to be. Exactly.

You might as a name, Dallas. I mean, it's a whole, it's death. I'm just saying. Yeah. Drain declare. Exactly. Okay. So, all that to say.

Now, back to. Yes. Being behaving. So the Jewish people do this, and it's this really beautiful thing of of remembering God's faithfulness and saying, you didn't have to do more than what you did, but you kept doing it. And so we have, at the Passover meal here in season five at the Last Supper, they're doing that.

And I thought, isn't that fascinating to also put it into context of having the Messiah right in front of you? And then the other part of it was we decided to do it like a woman's last supper. Because we know that Jesus had a last supper with his 12 apostles, and there's no record of the women being there. Yeah. But we thought, oh, that would be cool. And it's certainly plausible that Jesus is going to get together with his mom and the women followers and kind of do a Last Supper.

And they prepared their own daino, their own personal daino. And they came and his mother says, if you would have only been, you know, the child that I found in the temple when you were 12, that would have been enough. And each of them shares their own kind of personal testimony, testify, as you would say, in your church. But they all each share if, you know, if you would have, like, Lazarus's sister, if you would not have healed my brother, you know, it would have been enough, but you did, you know, and then Lazarus's sister, Mary of Bethany, who says, if you would not

have defended my honor, like, if you would have only healed my brother and not defended my honor when I broke the perfume over your feet in front of the religious leaders, it would have been enough. And then Big James ultimately at the last supper says to Jesus, if you would not have brought the Messiah in our lifetime, it would have been enough. But you chose here. you chose now, you chose us. That's beautiful. It wrecks me every time. Every time it wrecks me.

Yeah. Yeah, that scene was wild to me. I just, I had never heard of that. Yeah. And so that's an example of combining scripture with scriptural content and then with a cultural tradition that's not in scripture, but is for sure as biblical as it gets and as God honoring as it gets. Combining with some artistic imagination, some character to do something that I

I believe is plausible and applicable to us. And so, yeah, there's been people all over the world have said we're now doing our own Dianus because we've never seen that before. And more Gentiles are doing Jewish practices and rituals because of the Jewishness of Jesus than ever before. And I can imagine how the Jews, Jewish people, appreciate it. The show is growing rapidly in Israel,

even among non-Messianic Jews, because they're saying, we didn't know Jesus was a rabbi. And we're seeing all these prayers and these dance. and all these things that we've never seen before. This isn't the white westernized Jesus. This is a Jewish Jesus. Wow. And they're loving it.

That piece of the show too has been such as, is just mind-boggling to me how many people we hear from when we now are getting to travel around the world and hear different, from different cultures and different, how many people have never heard these stories that we're still living in a time where the Bible is more available than ever before, and they still do not know these stories. Wow.

Or our own actors. or our own crew members are watching these Bible stories for the first time that we grew up with. So that piece of it is another very humbling, almost overwhelming, if you think about it, too much of just how many, okay, now we need to keep going,

we need to keep translating. And of course, that's the part we have to pull it back and go, not our, it's just our five and two. So we'll get there. But it's an extraordinary thing to learn. But that is what leads, that's the Bible studies in the devotion books. that's where we do get to explore some of that even more.

Yeah, so season five, you guys have a Bible study. The title is, I think, The Chosen and the Stronghold. The Stronghold of the Chosen, yeah. And when you think of Stronghold, I think depending on what stream of the church you come up in, you might think Stronghold, like, oh, a mental stronghold or a spiritual warfare. What do you guys mean by the stronghold? Strongholds were actually places. So we start out the study talking about how it's a place.

that people would retreat to like a mountain fortress. And they would actually build. We have excavated some of these where you see what the kings would, there would be throne rooms and there would be quarters and there would be walls that could be reinforced if they were attacked and there were cisterns and there were whole civilizations inside these mountains so that people could retreat to armies could hide in,

you know, those kinds of things. And that it was this place that served all these purposes. Where you can hold strong. I mean, like literally. Retreat to and remain strong. Yeah. And so this idea of in Zachariah 9, our season 5 is the holy week and you see Jesus entering the city on Palm Sunday and everybody's waving the branches and yelling Hosanna and everything

seems at a, in a good place for the disciples. They're thinking, here we are. We're finally here. And he's going to declare himself and we're going to be freed from Rome and all those things. and it goes in the opposite direction. And yet that same prophecy that says he's going to enter the city on a donkey and he's, he's Hosanna and all these things that reinforce his identity as God, as Savior, it says he's the stronghold and the source of hope.

And yet he's then very quickly arrested, tried, crucified. And so it's really this picture of, in the midst of circumstances, he remains our stronghold. but I kind of got so weary of like not even fully understanding hope, like future hope, hope, hope in heaven, okay, circumstances are really bad right now. My child is suffering right now. I'm getting a no from you on these prayer requests right now. I'm not really finding a lot of hope in my heavenly healing or my heavenly home or whatever. And yet we ventured into this Bible study and started to, of course, it always starts with

studying the character of God. It always goes back to who he is. Why is he our stronghold? Why is he a place of refuge? Why is he a place of rest? How does he replenish us? All these things. And why does that give hope for right now today in the midst of suffering?

And so it's against this backdrop of the crucifixion and what was coming that they didn't yet know, but that Jesus was still the stronghold even in that moment. It's just changed the way that I'm navigating. for me personally, current circumstances, and how I'm seeing connections to what the disciples went through and how obviously, we look at the Israelites, we look at the disciples, and we have this 20-20 vision and we go, oh, okay, obviously they should have hoped. Obviously, a good thing was coming. A victory was coming. And it's just a reminder. It's the same is true for us. It's what's promised. You're overcomers.

That's good. My question for you is, even considering the scenes from season five in relation to the circumstances people might be in, in season five in particular, or even in this text in Zechariah 9, I don't think a savior being on a donkey looks strong. Right. Like a donkey? Like you should be a stallion or a chariot. And so that's ironic that him actually being weak is the thing that is why we can come

to him as refuge instead of even just merely judge. You know, like he had to die for us to come. And so I guess how does Zachariah 9, how does the Bible study even encourage people to trust that he's a refuge, that his arm really isn't too short to save? Because I think sometimes we just think lowly of the way God deals with us when we need to be like even if he doesn't, it don't look like he is who he says he is. He actually is who he says that he is. Yeah.

Okay. I love two parts of this because it speaks to. two sides of me. One is stronger than the other. First of all, the donkey actually wasn't weakness. We look at donkey as weakness. The donkey was sign of peace, right? So Solomon enters the city when he's been crowned,

anointed king by David. Come on, you be in the book? I know. I know my stuff. You'd hope so. Everybody in a boy d'clock. David puts him on a donkey. He answers the city as king because they're saying,

we're in a time of peace. There is no war here. This is the king, firmly established. We already have victory. were entering. It meant something. The donkey meant not a time of war. It was a shalom. It was a peace. He's coming back on a war horse, which is what I love in Revelation. Jesus is coming back on a warhorse, and I literally cannot wait. This is my fighting flush. This is my love language. Let's fight. I literally can't wait. He's coming back on a warhorse. And I think that's the picture of who he is, right? He is

approachable. He is welcoming. This is Jesus. This is all the complexities of Jesus that we had to cast in someone. where you have to see the gentleness, but you also have to see the strength. You have to see them in the temple, but then you also have to see him with the suffering leper. Yeah, and the contrast that he came to ring peace, but he will come back to, you know, bring judgment. And that peace is ours in him.

We can retreat to a place of peace. That's what he offers us, but he is also the conquering king. And he is also the judge. And same guy, right? And so that piece of it, too, to go, there's a time for peace and there's a time for war

and he makes both. That's good. That's a great word. We filmed season six, just not right, the crucifixion season. I've seen the clips. It looked like it was emotional. I got to make it out. I want to see it in person.

Yeah. That's going to be amazing. But we have a scene where John and Mary Magdalene wrestle with this. They go at the foot of the cross. they go to Jesus and they say why like when we were writing all the sequences of scripture we thought okay

they're watching Jesus for it's probably six to eight hours right suffer on the cross and we only have a record of a handful of things that were said but there were hours spent there and surely they would have engaged with him in some way and so at one point we have Magdalene and John approach and just saying why? Why does it have to be like this? Like, why does it have to be so, the torture, the pain?

Why does it, because Jesus even said to John and to the apostles in the garden when he was arrested, don't you know at any point I can call on my legion of angels and put us off to this, but how then would the scriptures be fulfilled? And so John is at the foot of the cross and he's saying, why, why does it have to be so painful that why do you have to go through this torture? And Jesus reminds Magdalene particularly, because Magdalene is in our show learning the scriptures in many ways for the first time. And he says, think of the prophecies of Isaiah, right?

And it says in Isaiah, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we assumed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. And then here's the key. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. and so Jesus reminds them of that and John goes

John says in season six is a spoiler this does not feel like peace like this is not this is not peace and he's like I don't understand and Jesus says you will and you know not yet

it doesn't feel like peace yet and we it goes back to what Amanda talked about when she said that God put on her heart. If you knew the whole plan, you would agree with it. You just can't see the whole plan right now. And so in that moment, the ultimate moment of that had to be,

his mother and his close friends and these women who were so supportive of him, anticipating the strength of a Messiah to overcome the oppressors. And he goes, oh, I am the Messiah. This is actually what's bringing you peace. And I am overcoming my oppressors. Because they thought peace only comes from crushing their oppressors. And he's saying, no, no, no. it was the chastisement and the wounds and the afflictions that brought us peace.

So the stronghold of the chosen is, as you said, there's an irony there that it's not the kind of stronghold we would imagine. Wow, that's good. Well, we just want to thank you all for being faithful to create a show, art ministry that is blessing the church and those outside of it. Thank you for even having an adjacent study where people cannot just watch, but also get in the text. You know what I'm saying? We're not watching TV shows in heaven. I kind of hope we are. I hope we bringing our gifts up there.

Maybe, but the TV show isn't the end game. That's true. It's like the great divorce. The artist didn't have to paint anymore. Well, that's actually a good point. So maybe we'll still get to do some stuff. Maybe. But it's not the end game.

The ultimate, it's to point you to the thing. I mean, I just want to encourage you guys to keep telling stories. I mean, you guys are amazing storytellers. And that's what the scriptures is. It's a collection of the story. a whole bunch of stories. And you guys continuing that, not adding no one to the word,

but just painting this picture for us to see it's been beautiful to watch. And for y'all, if you haven't seen The Chosen, it's five seasons, go on Amazon Prime, just watch them. Just watch all of it.

Have your Bible out, have some popcorn with your friends, something like that. Get to all the Bible studies and season six is coming. Do we know when it's coming? We do. Remember, it takes longer to make it

than it does to watch it. So I know you can watch season five in like six hours and then go, okay, well, let's get, we're season six. We'll take, took 86 days to film. Get to work, Bucco. Yeah, yeah. So we're done with the filming. It's coming. The first six episodes will come in the fall of next year to streaming.

And then the finale, the big crucifixion finale is going to be a feature-length film that's going to be released all over the world in theaters. Oh, that's beautiful. In dozens of languages at the same time. So the translating of all those languages is going to take some time, too. That's dope, though. It's worth it. Yeah, it'll be worth it. It's worth it.

Whatever you got in the future, let us know. We'll watch it. Thank you, Jenkins. Thank you, Saints and nights. Have a great day. Peace. With the Perrys is produced by The Perrys with support from Amanda Reed and Channing McBride.

Video recording and audio production by Matthew Baxter and Xavier Fairley. Edited by the team at Tread Lively, artwork by Hobb and music by Swoop. Thank you for listening. Now go with God.