Pastor’s Thoughts January 30th, 2024

Many who are reading this have a favorite novel, a book that they have read and can re-read and still enjoy. For those folks, the written word can conjure up imagery that helps tell the story that the author is trying to tell. For others though, the written word can fall flat, be two dimensional. For those people, there is the medium of cinema. And many books are made into movies to help tell the story in a more complete way. However, much of the time the book is superior to the movie.

For those of us who are in the Christian community, the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, is the most important book that we can read. And, hopefully, we can read it again and again and enjoy it and learn from it. For those of us who would rather watch than read, there is a series regarding the life of Jesus that is just wonderful.

Now, we need to be careful in understanding that the written word, the Bible is authoritative. A film version, even one that is well done, isn’t. Nevertheless, we can view and appreciate movies or videos that are true to the authoritative word.

The Chosen is a series that follows the life of Jesus Christ and His disciples as described in the Scriptures. It is very well done and the main points of the stories are indeed true to the Bible. The makers of the series do take some liberties with backstories, but nothing that I have seen so far is against Scripture. And for some, it truly brings to life what the realities of the first century must have been like.

The Chosen, season 4, will be in theaters on February 1, 2024. I recommend it to all. And, over the course of the year, it will likely be the focus of a group study here at church. Stay tuned.