BEMA 222: The Chosen S1E3 — “Jesus Loves the Little Children”

Transcription Status

27 Oct 24 — Initial public release

3 Jul 24 — Transcript approved for release

The Chosen S1E3 — “Jesus Loves the Little Children”

Brent Billings: This is the BEMA Podcast with Marty Solomon. I’m his co-host Brent Billings. Today we continue our review of The Chosen with a discussion on the third episode, titled Jesus Loves the Little Children. I got to say, Marty, this title gave me a little bit of a different idea of what this episode would be. I thought maybe we’re jumping ahead in time a little bit, and this was going to be the interaction with his disciples that we have directly in the Text, but it’s really more of just an episode showing the nature of Jesus in this really simple human way.

Marty Solomon: I do remember having some similar thoughts and thinking after this episode, “Is this whole show just pre-gospel set-up backstory?” Then you find out that in some upcoming episode, you start to catch the gospel narrative, but yes, we’re three episodes in, and it was all just backstory content. And as we’ve pointed out, excellent as can be, I like this episode too.

Brent: Yes, without further ado, spoilers for the episode start now.

[fog horn]

Brent: Yes. It starts off with Jesus alone with a campfire, he’s praying. It seems like he’s in distress maybe. Initially, I thought, is this part of his temptation in the wilderness or something? It really is just showing he is in fervent prayer and he’s really passionate about his ministry and just making sure that the timing is right for when he takes it more public than what we’ve seen so far.

Marty: Yes. I have that in my first notes as well. I suppose on some level somebody could — I’m sure tons of people see it this way. When they see this, they see Jesus coming to grip his mission and he’s looking ahead to his crucifixion. For me, I love this portion of it, and they do this through the whole series, the whole season. In this episode, in particular, there are some moments where you really see what I would call the humanity of Jesus on display.

When I saw that opening scene, I just see somebody, like you said, somebody who’s in fervent prayer, somebody who’s deeply spiritual but is also wrestling in their spiritual walk with God. I see somebody who doesn’t—honestly, I see, and maybe this is blasphemy, I don’t know, whatever, I’m sure people will let me know—but I see somebody that’s doubting, second-guessing, searching for something. That’s the stuff I saw. Somebody saying, “I know what I’m here to do. I’m also full of questions. I’m full of—” I’m probably projecting all of that from my own personal narrative, but that’s what I saw and I really liked it. A very human—this is a guy who’s got questions. This is a guy who’s got problems. This is a guy who is in angst over what it means to follow God.

Brent: Yes. We don’t actually know what’s going on in this scene. There’s plenty of room for a projection. Honestly, Jesus was around for quite a while before his ministry went public. He certainly had quite a bit of time to move through a whole lot of different emotions and thoughts and ideas about what he would be doing with his life. While we don’t have a direct contextual link to what happens in this episode, I don’t think anything that we see here is implausible in any way.

Marty: Yes, absolutely.

[The Chosen intro music]

Brent: Then we have our credits and the credits also gave me a different idea of what the episode would be, in that it listed all your normal characters, but really this episode is almost exclusively about Jesus and a few children. We see some links there. We see Abigail running out of her house initially heading to the stream. There’s this comment about swimming is not allowed, and that comes up again later. I wonder, was it particularly dangerous to swim in a, I think stream. It’s like, “Oh, well, that seems like it’d be pretty calm and safe enough to get in the water, but maybe not.” I don’t know.

Marty: Yes. I don’t know if I saw that. If there was something to the content of that, or if it was just parents being parents. I feel like that played into the content of the episode, was they have their worries, they have their concerns. They have all these things, “Don’t do this, don’t do this,” and she’s not going to, but she—that’s how I felt that comment played into it repeatedly through the preoccupations of silly adults.

Brent: Abigail, you immediately start to see her character and what she’s all about because she happens upon Jesus’s camp and just starts exploring it. She’s got her doll with her. She checks out his tools, finds some utensils, and acts like feeding her doll with the spoon. Then she sees the smoldering fire. She finds a little rough-cut toy boat and again puts her doll in the boat and is playing with that.

She’s just exploring everything. She finds a bowl of figs and, oh man, she didn’t eat one. She almost ate one, but then she puts it back and I’m telling you, those looked so good. Then she hears Jesus coming, and so she runs and hides behind the rocks. Jesus spots her, of course, because kids probably think they’re being quiet when they’re not actually very quiet, and then she just runs away.

Marty: He spotted her because of his God goggles, Brent.

Brent: Oh man. Yes. We have all sorts of God goggle moments happening here.

Marty: Do we? Yes, I like it.

Brent: Exactly. Then we have another little moment with Jesus at night. He’s making his fire and sweating which was great. How easy would it have been for him to call down fire, but he’s embracing this human experience and he’s cooking. He doesn’t miraculously just have a bowl of finished food ready to eat, he’s embracing humanity.

Marty: Yes, absolutely. The sweat on his brow was a super—you think it’s a passing detail. That was a really nice touch, because, yes, you connect to the humanity, to the physical participation of Jesus trying to build his own fire, but I personally, having been in the Middle East at sundown, I was immediately prodded to like, “No, that’s exactly how that would feel.” It’s hot. It’s humid. He’s in the Galilee. He’s trying to make a fire. I just felt uncomfortable like this, “I need a fire. It’s going to cool down, but I’m in this sticky—” Anyway, that was great. That was a great little moment.

Brent: No kidding. The actor, I heard him talking about this a little bit and he said, “I was able to actually get a few sparks and get some heat and smoke off of the sticks.” He said when you’re not used to doing that, it’s surprisingly difficult work to make a fire that way.

Marty: Absolutely.

Brent: He did have a little bit of assistance to actually get the full flames going, but yes, it was a great little moment. Then we see Abigail at dinner with her mom and dad and her mom we’ve previously seen as one of the friends of Mary. I think, what was that in the last episode where she was at the market?

Marty: Oh, yes. I forgot about that, but you’re right.

Brent: I’m assuming we’ll end up seeing more of them later. The dad seems a little distracted. The mom is asking about their friend Joanna and saying, “Hey, we need to help her. Can you stop by, and see her tomorrow?” He feels like, “I’ve got too much going on,” but then he is like, “Okay. Yes, I see that.”

Then Abigail asked, “Hey, can I go play with my friend Joshua tomorrow over by the field, or maybe by the stream?” The mom was like, “No swimming.” That’s where it comes back up again. I’m like, “Okay. I guess they’re really concerned about swimming and having problems come out of that.” I don’t know. She’s like, “I know, I know and I’ll do my chores first,” and whatever. She’s scheming to get back to visit Jesus as soon as possible.

Marty: Yes, absolutely.

Brent: Then Jesus is getting ready for bed. He removes his sandals, washes his feet which I thought was a great little moment.

Marty: Oh, I didn’t catch that. That’s right. That’s great. Okay. I love that.

Brent: Yes, and washing, he didn’t have a huge bowl of water. He just dipped a cloth in there and wiped him off, but he intentionally took his sandals off and stepped from his sandals onto a cloth and then grabbed a different cloth and then wiped his feet off with water, and then laid down for bed. He does a blessing as he falls asleep.

[episode audio clip]

Jesus: Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings sleep to my eyes.

[clip ended]

Brent: I don’t know if you can share. Is that a blessing that is common today, or do they make that up for the show or what? What’s the story with that?

Marty: Definitely common today and very possible that those blessings—there’s just so much about second temple Judaism. We’re not sure how much was in play, but definitely a common thing. There’s a blessing when you wake up, there’s a blessing when you get out of bed, there’s a blessing when you use the restroom—there’s a blessing for everything—and there’s a blessing when you go to bed. He recites that very standard blessing, and might I add, uses the intro that I love to use in my blessings. There’s a little nuances about “Blessed are you our Lord our God, King of the universe”— Master of the universe. I like the fact that Jesus obviously agrees with me. That was great. The blessings that are recited there are pretty spot on. I like that part of it. It was great and cool to hear him say it. Oh yes, absolutely. This is great. This is good.

Brent: Then as he’s falling asleep, it cuts to Abigail and Joshua going towards his camp the next morning. Abigail is just breathlessly telling the whole story about what she experienced yesterday. She’s going through all these ideas and she’s like, “Wow. Maybe he’s dangerous. Hey, did you bring a sword just in case?” Joshua is like, “What are you talking about?”

They get there and Jesus is sitting up getting ready to eat. He’s blessing God for the food and then notices them out of the corner of his eye and starts praying for them. It doesn’t draw them out. Then he kicks it up a notch, starts making all these animal noises and they laugh. Then he’s like, “Oh, that’s not sheep. What is that? What’s going on?” Then they come out and they do their introductions. Abigail is just peppering him with questions. Joshua is not comfortable with the questions at all. Then Jesus says, “I make things for the wealthy and trade them for food. That’s what my job is.” Abigail shares, “My family’s not wealthy.” He says, “Many times that’s better.” That’s their first little—she’s like, “Okay, Joshua came with me. I got to know him a little bit more, I got to ask him a bunch of questions. I’m feeling pretty good about this.” They leave and go home at that point.

Marty: Yes. The notes I have about that scene are just the boldness of children. I loved the way they—it’s so true anyway. There’s no stretching there. We all understand that about kids, but just to see that in our play between, in this case, Abigail, because at this point Josh was not comfortable. He’s even calling her back like, “Abigail.” On one hand, “Chill out,” but then like some of the questions too. Like, “How do you make money?” Like, “You don’t ask somebody that,” but she just has no fear. She leans in, she’s got boldness.

Obviously, throughout this whole episode, I’m reflecting on faith like a child. What are the things that we get to learn as we consider and reflect on what it means to have faith like a child? One of those things that I have down here, it’s just the boldness like, “I got this question.” I think when you get older, that gets beat out of us spiritually speaking, where you start having a more nice, a more prim and proper faith. There’s something about this childlike faith of, “I’m marching in. I got another question.” I love that. That’s great.

Brent: Yes. Then we have Jesus at night, again, he’s working on the lock and key that he shared with Abigail earlier and he gets it to the point where the mechanism works and he says, “It is good.” He sets it down and then he goes to sleep, which I thought was a great line.

Marty: [laughs] Yes, that’s great.

Brent: Then Abigail shows up again. She’s got five kids with her this time and they wake Jesus up [chuckles] which I thought was amazing. Another very human moment, he wakes up and it’s like, “Oh, that sun is bright. Hang on, what’s happening?” Six kids standing over you when you wake up is not normally what you would expect out in the middle of nowhere. He says, “Well, I think I’m going to have to ask you guys to help if you’re going to stick around for the day.” They’re like, “Absolutely.”

Then we see him brushing his teeth and washing up. Again, just so much humanity in this episode. Because we know Jesus was tempted in every way like we were or whatever. It’s like, “Well, yes. Temptation’s part of it.” He lived the whole human experience. The monotony of the day-to-day, the cooking, the cleaning, the washing, all of that stuff. We have that shared experience with Jesus. I just think that normally it’s not something we consider.

Marty: Yes, absolutely. It did a great job of just working that in, like you said, seamlessly without feeling it was overdone or awkward, or forced. It was really well done. I love some of my notes. You get this sense that Jesus is forming—he’s got this little havurah, not a technical havurah. A very informal little havurah with children. I love the picture of Jesus starting his ministry behind the curtain informally with little kids. I thought, “Man, that’s so great in a lot of ways.” I had those opportunities as a brand new intern and apprentice, I would’ve never chosen to work in the children’s ministry or around children, but I was forced into these spaces and they were super good for me. I just thought, “How great is it that even Jesus in this fictional made-up world has this opportunity to start,” do I want to say, “His training wheels?” I don’t know if that seems, again, blasphemous or not, but Jesus gets his rough draft. It’s so great.

Brent: Yes. The kids are asking all sorts of funny questions in the midst of all of this stuff. One of them says,

[episode audio clip]

Kid: Is your father rich?

Jesus: [Laughs] Did Abigail tell you to ask me that?

[clip ended]

Brent: He’s like, “That’s a question for another time.” I love that little moment, like, “Okay, you guys aren’t quite ready for the answer to that one,” but they talk about Shema. An interesting thing about that they were saying in one of the commentaries, originally the actor who plays Jesus when he shot the scene, he pronounced it “Shima.” Then they got back and one of their consultants was like, “There’s no conceivable way that Jesus would ever mispronounce Shema, so you’ve got to fix that somehow.” They had to re-record that line and dub it over the original track which I thought was funny.

Marty: I love that scene by the way. Just he’s emotional and you realize who’s hearing it. You know me, I avoid all the Trinitarian like, “Is he, God? Is he Jesus?” I’m always just seeing Jesus. Even in that scene, I’m watching Jesus’s face—porting Trinitarian theology of, “Here’s God getting to hear the thing that he taught his people thousands of years ago from the mouths of children.” It’s just great. I have a note, before the Shema, when he calls Joshua. For the first time, he calls him Joshua the brave.

[episode audio clip

Joshua: What’s your favorite food?

Jesus: Oh. Joshua the brave speaks.

[clip ended]

Marty: I was moved by that. Because remember Joshua was anything but brave and yet here’s Jesus giving him this name. Calling out of him the very thing that I think by most metrics who would’ve been like, “No, that’s the opposite of who he is,” and Jesus going, “No, no, no. This is who you are. You are Joshua the brave.” Because of that throughout the whole episode, Joshua is far more brave. I just thought, “Man, isn’t that just like, to Jesus to take the thing that we think we’re the worst at and call out of us, name in us the very thing that we feel like we struggle with.” I just love that. That was great.

Brent: I think that was right when Joshua asked the first question, the first time he had the courage to ask a question, right?

Marty: Yes, absolutely. That’s the very first time he says, “Oh, Joshua, the brave speaks.” You’re not quite sure if that’s the first time that name’s ever been used, but it’s the first time in the episode for sure.

Brent: Yes. I get this sense like, “Hey, Joshua, if you’re willing to take a little step of faith and ask a question and engage with the conversation, then I’m going to call out who you really are.”

Marty: Absolutely. Great. Wonderful little moment.

Brent: Yes. They’re doing the Shema and I got the sense, yes, I can totally see the idea, oh God hearing his people speaking those words back or whatever. I also just got this sense, Jesus is almost lost in his hope for these children. Like, “Oh, this generation is caring for the mission of God,” and he just is so moved by that. That was my take on it, but yes, there’s a number of ways you can interpret that emotion. I’m thinking probably a combination of all of them.

Marty: Right.

Brent: They’re sitting around and they’re just talking about loving God and loving other people and whatever. Then the kids leave and then they start arguing about who he is. This is another thing from later on that we see his disciples doing like the kids are doing it now. My favorite line in this scene was,

[episode audio clip]

Kid: I like him. I’m just saying, maybe he’s a criminal.

[clip ended]

Marty: Right. Yes.

Brent: Then they agree, “Okay. Well, whatever he is, we’re not going to tell anybody about this and we’re going to come back tomorrow.”

Marty: Right.

Brent: Which is great. Then we have a little bit of a montage. The kids are back, they’re walking with him, they’re fishing, they’re working on their Our Father, the Amidah prayer, whatever. Then we see Jesus bandaging a wound on his arm, which is great. You don’t really think about the idea of Jesus being able to bleed like that. Obviously, he does in his crucifixion, but prior to that, that’s not the image you get. Like, “Oh, Jesus doesn’t get hurt. He’s perfect.” The only reason it worked in the crucifixion is because he chose to let himself and that’s just not how it worked.

Marty: I remember being in Bible college wrestling with, did Jesus ever slam his thumb with a hammer, and having to wrestle with the Christology behind the theology of the incarnation and what that means. We all had these really strong feelings but then had to try to articulate theologically why we—some of us like myself, we’re like, “Of course, he did. Don’t be ridiculous.” You had to explain that. Other were people like, “Of course, not. How could he? Explain yourself!” Again, I’m glad the show sided with my own personal understandings of preferences. Well done.

Brent: He’s telling the kids stories she bears, and then he does his big expressive motion. In the director’s commentary, he’s saying, “I knew this moment was going to be—We didn’t tell the children what was going to happen, how he was going to play this out and so we had his camera operator trained on the youngest girl. Her reaction that you see there was her genuine reaction to the first take of that scene.” I just thought that was a great moment.

Marty: That is good. I like that.

Brent: Man, I love a good expressive storyteller. Then we see Jesus praying earnestly again. It seems like every single night he’s wrestling with whatever he’s wrestling with. He’s teaching the kids a song. There’s more kids now, there are seven kids at this point. As far as the song, I was wondering if this is a known song or even just a common melody or something. I don’t know if you know anything about that.

Marty: I am not an expert on melodies and how they get used and if there’s something driving that like there is with the history of Christian music if there’s something similar in the history of Jewish music and Jewish melody. The song is Psalm 133, I believe, if I got my Psalm correct. Caught me off guard there. I’m talking on top of my head, but I’m pretty sure he’s singing Psalm 133, “How good and pleasant is it when brothers dwell together in unity. It’s like precious oil flowing down the beard. Flowing down Aaron’s beard, onto the collar of his robe, like the dew of Mount Hermon.” I’m almost quoting that song from memory, Brent.

Brent: That’s pretty good.

Marty: Yes, that’s the Psalm that he’s singing in reference there.

Brent: Okay. I figured they must have got that from somewhere but they didn’t mention it at all in the commentary. I just want to ask about that. Then it falls into a discussion that he’s having with the kids about punishment like, “I push this guy and—” They’re talking about Torah, and they’re talking about respect for teachers and parents, talking about whether the Messiah will be a military leader.

Then, Abigail, answers a question with a quote of Scripture and he’s like, “Whoa, boys pay attention. She doesn’t even go to Torah class.” I’m like, well wait for a second here. I know the girls did go to the Torah classes, and they didn’t move on past the Torah classes, but Torah they did. Is this maybe a little bit of a misstep on the part of the chosen?

Marty: I think maybe because let’s say 15 years ago, 20 years ago, we didn’t think they went to Torah class, then we found evidence that they did. Maybe, that position, we might be overextending to assume that all girls or even most girls went to Torah class. I’m assuming that most didn’t still. We know that there were girls that were involved with bet sefer, but I would imagine a lot of families didn’t have that luxury, didn’t have that ability. Those young girls were often very busy around the house. I would imagine that. I get still very historically plausible that she doesn’t go to Torah class. Although we have learned in the last 15 years of scholarship, we believe that the girls were more present. We didn’t think they were present at all and we’ve discovered that they were more present than we realized.

Brent: We do find out later in the episode that she knows how to read. Wouldn’t that be the kind of thing that you would get in Torah class or was it possible that her parents just somehow taught her?

Marty: Yes. Everything about that was so wacky because they make a big deal about putting that she comes from a poor family. Typically all this, the ability to go Torah class, the ability to read, that would have come from the privileges provided to you because of more wealthy affluence. Obviously, anything’s possible. It’s completely possible. It’s not historically implausible. I just couldn’t figure out like, “Man, how did that come to pass? That some poor girl knows how to read without going to Torah class. How did that work?” A million ways to explain that, she could have a relative, she could have had, maybe whatever her dad does. Yes, there’s definitely a ton of ways that could have been true, but that was definitely an interesting little ditty there.

Brent: I guess maybe something to watch out for if we learn any more family background for her because we don’t really know a whole lot about her family yet at this point.

Marty: Right, absolutely.

Brent: Then Abigail asked the big question. She’s like, “Why are you even here?” [chuckles] Jesus pauses for a moment and thinks about, “Okay, how am I going to explain this?” Talks about some stuff, he quotes Isaiah.

[episode audio clip]

Jesus: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to proclaim the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind. To set that liberty to those who are oppressed. To proclaim the year of the lord’s favor.”

Kid: Isaiah.

Jesus: Isaiah.

[clip ended]

Brent: A pretty powerful moment, I think.

Marty: Yes, absolutely. Quoting it to children. Yes, it was good. It was good.

Brent: The kids head out for the day, Jesus continues working by the fire. We see him grab a block of wood and start writing on it, and then—

Marty: Okay. Now, before we even get into that, I’m going to stop you right there.

Brent: Okay.

Marty: I have a couple of notes that I’ve passed over. I love the comment in that scene about, first of all, when—because during that conversation, one of the boys asks about Rabbi Josiah. That was the right scene, right? Am I getting that correct?

Brent: Yes. I think that’s initially when the big group of them left for the first time and they’re arguing about who he is, who Jesus is.

Marty: Then there’s the second time where he’s actually addressing Jesus during that conversation. He says, “Rabbi Josiah says this about Messiah.”

Brent: Oh, yes, that’s right. Yes, he does bring it up again.

Marty: There’s this wonderful interchange, which I just felt was full of tension that even I feel like I wrestle with in BEMA and those kinds of things, where Jesus is like, “No. It’s very important you honor and you respect your teachers, your adults, your elders.” There’s no chip on his shoulder. There’s no wink. It’s unequivocal respect for elders and teachers and leaders, which is something that I try to hold myself. I even see the scene as like, “Yes, that’s the model. That’s the example that I’m trying to pursue after.” I’m not here to cause division. I don’t think we should in our walk. No. We honor our teachers, our leaders. Then there’s this pause [chuckles] and then, in the next explanation, he says,

[episode audio clip]

Jesus: Rabbi Josiah is a smart man. At many times, smart men lack wisdom.

[clip ended]

Marty: There are many smart people that lack wisdom. I just thought, my goodness. That is such a thunderbolt statement. That is the tension of kids. Jesus isn’t raising a bunch of people to disrespect their leaders. Jesus isn’t raising a rogue movement that’s going to break away and go do their own thing, nor is Jesus outlining how this is going to work practically either. He’s just saying, “Your teachers are great. Your leaders are good people. You should honor and respect them but sometimes they’re idiots. Sometimes they lack wisdom. Sometimes they know.”

Then there’s another line later where he says, “What if all the things that our forefathers think and understand what if it’s all wrong? What if there’s another way to see it?” He keeps talking about “What do you guys see?” I think I have another statement here in my notes. Let’s see it here. Oh, golly. Yes, I have all kinds of notes but that conversation was a big one for me. I think it was my favorite part of the episode.

At some point, he’s talking about being a peacemaker. He says, “God will have compassion on his people,” and he pauses waiting for the students to, and of course, Abigail wants to answer, but Jesus is like, “Well, maybe we should let the boys play,” and they complete the sentence. I thought to myself, how many of us even knew what verse…? [chuckles] I was not able to complete that sentence. I still have to go do a word search if I want to figure out which passage she’s quoting. “God will have compassion on his people when…” I can’t remember how they finished it, because I still don’t even know the verse well enough Brent, but can we have compassionate people when, something about when they’re in suffering or when they’re broken down, that’s when God will have compassion on his people.

Brent: Talk about being pierced to the heart. [chuckles] I’ve no idea.

Marty: Yes, many times adults—and other phrases, he says in that same conversation— many times adults need the faith of children. Many times the adults need the faith of children and then the last phrase that comes out of the same, which I would make the capstone of the whole, I know we got more episodes to talk about, Brent, but in that same conversation, if I had a sentence that said, “I feel like we should all walk away from this episode and really think and marinate on that.”

He starts talking about his future disciples, the people that he has to call. This might even be a later conversation in the episode, I’m not even sure. He says, “I suspect they do not have the—” It comes from a place of emotion for him. Like, “I’m about ready to leave you guys. We’re about ready to be done here because I’m going to go start the rest of my ministry with a bunch of people that I’m still going to call.” He says, “I suspect they do not have the understanding you do.” You feel there’s this emotional pain when he says that, like, “Oh, I have loved hanging out with you children and now I have to go work with these adults,” and they don’t have the understanding. I thought, “No, no, no. Kids are stupid. What do kids know? Kids are dumb.” And I loved that line and I just thought, I want to go reflect on that for the next week.

Brent: Yes. I’m remembering this now that you’re saying it. He says, “I hope that they will ask the questions that you do and listen to me like you have done, but I suspect they won’t have the understanding that you do.” He’s just a bare minimum like, “Please just listen to me and ask questions.” He’s not even expecting them to understand as well as these children do.

Marty: Yes, because our understanding is going to actually just get — we have all this “understanding” that actually just gets in the way of the understanding that Jesus wishes we actually had. That’s another convicting shot to the heart.

Brent: That is pretty close to the end of the episode. He’s basically saying goodbye without actually saying goodbye. I think maybe Abigail understands that because the next day when she returns, she comes alone. It’s raining and stuff so maybe they just didn’t think like, “Well, we don’t want to stand around in the rain all day.” She shows up and she finds the camp abandoned. She sees the gift there. She reads the placard that says, “Abigail, I know you can read. You’re very special, this is for you. I did not come only for the wealthy.” The Chosen is three for three on making me cry with the final scene.

Marty: [laughs] Yes. That was good. I just love the whole interaction with children. It’s a great episode. Did a great job with that. For another episode with just backstory and very little connection to a chronological historical gospel content. That was just another great job they did with that.

Brent: I think we do see a lot of elements from the Text that are pulled into the idea of the children as his disciples arguing about who Jesus is or whatever. It’s not like this is completely out of thin air, but definitely, some interesting backstory. The only question I had coming out of the episode is how in the world is Abigail going to explain to her parents where she got this giant playhouse?

Marty: Yes. I was wondering that too. Is she going to leave it there? She goes and plays with it every day or is she going to take it home? It caught my thought too.

Brent: Yes, great question. I think the only other note I have in all these notes that I didn’t touch on was at one point in the episode, Jesus has this comment:

[episode audio clip]

Jesus: Everyone has a much larger job than just their trade.

[clip ended]

Marty: I both loved and hated that phrase. I hated it because I think we will quickly hear that and we’ll just do what Christians always do, which is go, “Well, there’s your vocation,” and then there’s the spiritual stuff you’re supposed to be doing and will separate the soil-spirit and part of—anybody who’s heard me talk much—part of what Impact Campus Ministries is trying to do is we’re trying to bring that gap. We have separated soil and spirit. We’re trying to bring it back together and recapture what we’re calling the sanctity of vocation, the holiness of work.

We’re trying to teach people why their trade matters. On one hand, I was like, “I hate that statement.” On the other hand, I really loved it because you don’t have to separate soil and spirit to appreciate that comment. No matter who we are, and no matter what we do, there is something that we’re here for. There’s an identity that we’re a part of. There’s a thing that God is doing with us that is bigger than simply the work that we do with our hands every day. I both loved and hated that, but that was the only statement I had in my notes that we hadn’t talked about.

Brent: Alright. Well, that will do it for this episode. Pretty great. Looking forward to more, I think. Pretty safe to say I really love how they are establishing characters and setting us up for — I think probably in the next episode, we’re going into a more direct gospel narrative.

Marty: Yes. We got eight episodes in the first season.

Brent: Yes.

Marty: Well, we are not quite halfway through.

Brent: Well, if you want to get a hold of Marty, you can find him on Twitter at @MartySolomon. I’m at @eibcb. You can go to bemadiscipleship.com to find out more about the show. I’ve got links to The Chosen in the show notes. Thanks for joining us on the BEMA Podcast. We’ll talk to you again soon.