A year ago, I wrote a critique of the television series, The Chosen. I didn't like the program, but I did enjoy writing the review.
God made me a very analytical man, and I like to study things. Discernment is important, and I am going to discuss what I see in several movies that I own copies of. You may agree with my opinions, or you may not, but this may give you insight into how I think.
One of my favorite biblical films is The Visual Bible's Matthew. I like it because it sticks rigidly to the 1984 New International Version translation, and because Bruce Marchiano portrays a very human, yet righteously authoritative Jesus. His dressing down of the religious leaders in Matthew 23 is impressive, and his compassion for those he heals seems genuine. I have watched this movie countless times, and the words are seared into my memory from the repetition.
I do find it interesting that Bruce always covers his head when he portrays Jesus praying in this movie. Elisha was bald and Paul thought men praying with covered heads was dishonorable. The Jewish practice of men covering their heads began well after the time of Jesus.1
The film also treats Mary Magdelene as a reformed prostitute, which I believe is unsubstantiated in Scripture, as I discussed previously.
I had an opportunity to talk with Bruce Marchiano when he visited my church when he was promoting his book, In the Footsteps of Jesus. He expressed disappointment that the people running The Visual Bible brought in some big-name actors for the followup Acts movie. We both agreed that the Holy Spirit didn't seem to make an appearance in that second production.
This movie resonates with me because the biblical book of Matthew is written to believers. It is the book of Mark with insights behind what Jesus did. I think word-for-word productions of Mark and Luke/Acts might be useful for evangelizing non-believers because those books are written to them.
Another favorite is The Prince of Egypt. The music is fun and the artistic and historical licenses don't contradict any important biblical concepts. I saw the movie in a theater when it first came out, and the Burning Bush theme made me weep. The scene where Moses explained to Tzipporah what had happened to him at the Bush prompted me to ask my wife to follow me on my spiritual journey. The song Look Through Heaven's Eyes is probably the best wisdom in the movie, and it was the subject of my first post after I lost my dear wife. The demonstrations of God's power always make me feel some adrenaline.
The movie only goes through the Red Sea and just shows Moses with the tablets; it doesn't go any further, which is probably fine for a kids' movie.
I do always bristle a bit when Moses tells Tzipporah that his motivation for going back to Egypt is to free "his people," rather than because God commanded him to do it. They are God's people, after all, and the movie left out the part where God made Moses' hand leprous. Yes, those are details, but I think they are important ones. Did the medical industry use their influence to make sure any references to miraculous healings did not appear in the film? Given what I know now, it seems logical.
Another thing that makes me uncomfortable are some of the lyrics of the song When You Believe. They are rather worldly and attribute results of miracles to us, rather than to God.
I always chuckle when God in the Bush gets angry at Moses and says, "Who made man's mouth?" There's a discontinuity in the script because nothing was mentioned in the movie about Moses' mouth. In the Bible, Moses claimed he could not speak well, as he made excuses, and that pushed God to get angry. But the movie couldn't go there because the cartoon Moses did not have a speech problem. It is difficult to adapt a book into a film.
Overall, this is one of my favorite spiritual movies. It came out in theaters a few months before I was baptized in water and received the Holy Spirit, and the subject matter is the same as I was reading when I had my "I believe" moment when I was nine years old.
The film Risen is an interesting extrabiblical story about a Roman officer who encountered Jesus and his resurrection. I liked it. As one reviewer opined, the movie tends to cause modern, western Christians to identify with the Romans, rather than the disciples of Jesus. That may be true for some, but not for me. I'm the weird one who blogs about being a Jew.
I love how this movie treats the miracles around the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and how Jesus disappears from the room where his disciples are gathered. His healing of the leper is good, too.
My main complaint about the film is the message it conveys at the end. There's a lot about love and peace ("a day without death"), but nothing about repentance. Nothing. That's a problem, and it pervades most movies like this. This is precisely the reason why I am writing this post. This is dangerous, and we need to call it out.2
This film also treats Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute, as I discussed above.
The Visual Bible's The Gospel of John just doesn't work, in my opinion. The book of John is written to believers who have the Holy Spirit, and it goes into great detail about some difficult subjects. In general, movies are a visual medium which requires the director and actors to convert much of the story into actions. This invariably results in them introducing their own beliefs and biases into the final result. I also find the visual elements distracting, which seems to crowd the Holy Spirit out of the discussion.
Another disappointment in this film is the actor's depiction of Jesus. He is very stoic and rarely exhibits fruits of the Spirit. I understand the text is very serious, and much of what Jesus says is critical of the religious leaders, but Bruce Marchiano managed to pull it off well in Matthew and I think it could have been done here. It's too bad they didn't use Bruce, but I think he and the producers had gone their separate ways.
This movie also conveys the typical extrabiblical elements that show up in similar movies, including Matthew: Mary Magdalene starts out dressed as a harlot, men cover their heads to pray, and people fold their hands and bow their heads during prayer, which is stereotypical behavior in the modern church. In addition, the smell of Replacement Theology seems to waft through the film as the actor playing Jesus scolds the religious leaders and rabid crowds.
When I first started reading the Bible, I tried to read John but didn't understand anything. After my baptism in water and Spirit, I got a lot out of it and focused on it almost exclusively for a while. We must have the Holy Spirit in order to understand the "meat" that Jesus teaches us, and John is very "meaty." The book of Mark would be a much better candidate to make into a movie because it is written to unbelievers, plus it is very short and to the point. My DVD copy of The Gospel of John has a flyer advertising The Gospel of Mark, which was apparently in production when the "John" DVD was released. Unfortunately, it appears that project was never finished. What a pity. I think they should have started with that one in the first place.
The Passion of the Christ is a high production value passion play viewed through the director's religious glasses. There are a number of extrabiblical elements in the film that reflect Roman Catholic programming, many of them focusing on Jesus' mother. The film is very well done, but it is exceedingly brutal. That brutality may be close to the truth, but it makes the film difficult to watch. The dialog is in the original languages, and I like that authenticity.
The Holy Spirit has always dissuaded me from picking this film to watch, and I had not seen it in years, until I rewatched it so I could write this review. I don't think Jesus likes reliving those events. He did say, "It is finished," and I think He really meant it.
The world and the Darkness seem to enjoy producing passion plays, perhaps because they like seeing the God of the Universe humiliated, but I don't like it. I understand what happened, but I prefer to live a resurrected life with Jesus, rather than dwell on the gore of the Crucifixion. The Bible says I should worship God in Spirit and in Truth, and doing so brings on its own persecutions. I am now without my beloved wife, for example, and I see that as part of "carrying my cross."
So, after over two hours of arguing, agony and gore in this movie, we finally get to see the Resurrection, and it lasts for 81 seconds. That's where my personal journey began, after I got my tool bag. We can watch all of the "passion plays" and Bible movies that are out there, but until we commit to living our own blockbuster, we may be in peril of missing out on what is actually available to us.
That The World May Know with Ray Vander Laan is a teaching series that takes viewers to places in the Bible. Early in my spiritual growth, our Sunday School class viewed several of the lessons and I learned a lot from them. Shortly after that, we acquired VHS copies of the first five volumes. Later, we acquired additional DVD copies through volume 12. When we stopped going to church, we still viewed the programs in our home.
I would love to go to Israel, and I romantically think about eventually living there. This material provides some access to those yearnings. When I first watched the videos, I became aware of some of the very dark parts of the biblical narrative, such as child sacrifice and demon worship.
This series helped me learn to worship in Spirit and in Truth. Vander Laan modeled that behavior for me. He pointed out truth by going to real places, and he coupled it with spirit by opening up and reading from pages of the Bible. Every VHS lesson began with the statement, "The ancient land of Israel is a testimony and evidence of the greatness of what God did in that country, a testimony to the truth of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible." As I re-watched the lessons, I could see where his teachings had influenced me, both good and not so good.
In Volume 4, Lesson 2, Ray talks about the demon-possessed man in Mark 5, and he points out that Jesus would not let the man come with him after he had been set free. He told the man to go tell people what had happened to him. Later, when Jesus came back to the area, many people came to see him and he miraculously fed four thousand. Ray says, "Just show people what's happened to you." It's that kind of thinking that motivates me to maintain this blog. I was set free, and I want to share my story with others, too.
Ray has a divinity degree and is an ordained minister, so he went to a seminary...and he got programmed. His upbringing and programming gave him a set of religious glasses, and he has programmed others by utilizing the pattern, both literally as can be seen in the picture, and through technology by the dissemination of the video productions. By understanding his background, it is easy to see his biases and blind spots.
For example, in Volume 4, Lesson 10, as Ray reads portions of the passage cited in the picture, Acts 2:42-47 (NIV 1984), he tells the group that what marks someone as being filled with the Holy Spirit is whether or not they care about people around them who need what they have. In doing that, he totally leaves out any mention of, "many wonders and miraculous signs," done by the apostles. He spends most of his time trying to make a tenuous connection between Moses giving the Law at Mount Horeb and what took place fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus, instead of on the demonstrations of the Spirit's power.
Ray rarely ever mentions the disciples performing miraculous signs and wonders in his lessons, and this is a good example of where he leaves it out. This is typical of teachers in "evangelical" circles. Under their tutelage I believed those things were only for Jesus to do because nobody ever talked about them, let alone demonstrated them! But Jesus said...
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. (Mark 16:16-18 NIV)
As I watch the people in the videos, I feel sorry for them because I used to be in their shoes. At some points, they lament that they feel powerless against the evil of the culture, and Ray seems to reluctantly concur. He said in Volume 4, Lesson 3 that sixty million evangelical Christians in the United States ought to have an effect. But do they? I believe they don't because they see themselves as "Christians," and not "apprentices," they do not have their complete "tool bags," and they lack authority because they do not identify with spiritual Israel. That identification would give them the authority they need. Unfortunately, the programming they have received from teachers like Vander Laan has left them unequipped to deal with the Darkness, and that's the way the Darkness wants it. Repentance is the only way forward.
Another thing worth mentioning is in Volume 5, Lesson 1 where Ray talks about what Jesus said at Caesarea Philippi. Ray implies Jesus was speaking to a crowd of Pan worshipers when he talked about losing your life to save it and gaining the whole world but forfeiting your soul, but the text clearly states Jesus was only talking to those who were following him. I was reading the text like a Berean and noticed this, but Ray's audience members in the video were probably not, and Ray does not reference the text. Through his message, Ray implies we should use these passages to evangelize, but they are intended for believers and seekers, not the unrepentant. They are profound ideas that deserve pondering, and the unrepentant will only laugh at them. I think this confuses people and potentially blunts the Gospel message. This blog is intended for believers, not unbelievers. The statement of the Gospel in the blog heading3 gives unbelievers the message they need to hear, as does the 'Featured Post' in the sidebar, Apprentice of Jesus, and they are unlikely to read any further if they persist in their unbelief. My purpose is to primarily encourage and challenge believers without upsetting unbelievers. Jesus tailored his messages for his audiences, and I try to do the same.
I noticed in one of the original That the World May Know lessons that there were 33 people in the group, including Ray. (I assume the production team was not included.) That means there were 32 students and one teacher. Those numbers mean things, and I don't think it's a coincidence. The series was funded by Ed Prince, father of Betsy DeVos and Erik Prince of Blackwater fame. I think these things may be connected and could help explain what is really going on.
Columbo was a television program I used to watch as a teenager. He was a homicide detective who always figured out the crime, and he did it by being curious, persistent and logical. I love the Truth, and I have found that it is those things that help me discover it. Jesus said that the Father is looking for people who worship in Spirit and Truth. That is what I do, and I am passionate about it.
All glory to God.
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1Kolatch, Alfred J., The Jewish Book of Why, Jonathan David Publishers, Inc., Middle Village, New York 11379, copyright 2000, pp. 120-122, 298. Also: https://www.jewishhistory.org/the-beginnings-of-the-talmud/.
UPDATE, October 14, 2021...
3This was the heading text at the top of the blog when this post was written:
I do not deserve the mercy nor the grace extended to me...
Repent and believe, be immersed in water in the Name of Jesus for the remission of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!
This is the true Gospel.
If there is anything good in me, it is from Above.
If I have any knowledge or understanding, it is from the Holy Spirit.
If I have any confidence in myself, I am a fool.