God in His providence, chose to send His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world when He did. Christ could have come to save the world during the time of cell phones and live streaming, but He didn’t. God chose to send His Son in the fullness of time, and to have the proclamation of His work be done through the Word. In short, God gave us a book, and it was not by accident that He did so.

I don’t watch much television these days, and don’t tend to keep up with what is new or popular on TV. One show, however, has caught my attention because of its notoriety, and its subject matter. The Chosen, which has been on air for a few years now, seeks to depict the life and ministry of Jesus Christ in the form of a television series. The series has been met with rave reviews, with thousands of professing Christians lending their support for the series, and a 90%+ rating on major review sites. I have only heard about it because of the success it seems to be having within the church, as more and more Christians talk about it. However, I find this new excitement over The Chosen concerning, and would warn Christians from watching the show for the following 3 reasons.
The Chosen Violates The 2nd Commandment 
Christians ought to make quick work of discerning whether or not to watch The Chosen by simply recognizing that it violates the 2nd Commandment. For reference, here is the 2nd Commandment given in Exodus 20:4-6:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Additionally, the Westminster Larger Catechism 109 helpfully expounds what is forbidden in the 2nd Commandment .
Q. 109. What are the sins forbidden in the second commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the second commandment are, all devising, counseling, commanding, using, and anywise approving, any religious worship not instituted by God himself; the making any representation of God, of all or of any of the three persons, either inwardly in our mind, or outwardly in any kind of imageor likeness of any creature whatsoever; all worshiping of it, or God in it or by it; the making of any representation of feigned deities, and all worship of them, or service belonging to them; all superstitious devices, corrupting the worship of God, adding to it, or taking from it, whether invented and taken up of ourselves, or received by tradition from others, though under the title of antiquity, custom, devotion, good intent, or any other pretense whatsoever; simony; sacrilege; all neglect, contempt, hindering, and opposing the worship and ordinances which God hath appointed.
Christians wanting to obey the Scriptures ought to reject the use of images representing “God, of all or of any of the three persons.” This applies especially to any use of images in corporate worship, but also directs what kinds of shows we watch, books we read, and more. To watch The Chosen, shows a disregard for God’s law. While most watching the show, I suspect, are not doing so with the intention of going against God’s Word, the end result is still the same. We must be careful to know God’s Word, and to obey God’s Word, in all aspects of our life.
The Chosen Comes From A Concerned Source
One issue that has not been given much publicity is the explicitly non-Christian religious influence on the show’s production. The production company behind the show, Angel Studios, was founded, and is operated by two members of the Mormon faith. It is worth noting that Angel Studios also creates a product called VidAngel which is used by many Christians to help censor and filter out inappropriate content from TV shows and other streaming platforms. Still, the company now moves into the production business, and their portrayal of Jesus and his ministry is concerning.
There have been many concerns about how faithful the representation of Jesus would be to Scripture. The very nature of television leads there to be edits and interpretations to set up more dramatic encounters and dialogues. Still, one explicit example worth noting came when the show had Jesus say “I am the law of Moses,” which is found nowhere in Scripture, but is found in the Book of Mormon. It would seem the potential Mormon influence is greater than perhaps some are willing to admit. Furthermore, the situation has not been helped by the Creator, Director, Co-Writer, and Executive Producer of the show, Dallas Jenkins, who has often responded to this controversy with joking and implications that he may work more Mormon references into the show. Jenkins has also been unclear regarding his understanding of the clear distinction between Christians and Mormons, and how they are fundamentally separate faiths.
It leaves me to wonder why Christians would partake in entertainment which comes from such a concerned source. As with a poisoned well, you may get some clean water from it, but is it worth the risk? The Chosen represents a dangerous source of entertainment, which dramatically takes Jesus and his words out of context, and even allows for heresy to be brought in. Even discerning Christians are at risk watching a show like this, and the payoff of entertainment does not justify it.
We Have Something Greater Than The Chosen
Perhaps someone reading this article disagrees with me on my interpretation regarding the 2nd Commandment. Perhaps its even possible that they disagree with the alarming concern surrounding the changing of Jesus’s actions and words. I know of several Christians who believe that productions such as The Chosen are helpful, because they stir their imaginations, and raise their affections for Christ. Even if you disagree with my previous two warnings, I would like to issue a third, by demonstrating that The Chosen is far less than what you already have in God’s Word.
God in His providence, chose to send His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world when He did. Christ could have come to save the world during the time of cell phones and live streaming, but He didn’t. God chose to send His Son in the fullness of time, and to have the proclamation of His work be done through the Word. In short, God gave us a book, and it was not by accident that He did so. God speaks to us through His Word, and He has not left us with some lesser form of revelation.
In John 20, we see the famous account of Jesus and Doubting Thomas. Thomas, demands to see Jesus in order to believe. After witnessing the risen Christ, here is what Jesus declares:
Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29).
Immediately following this declaration by Jesus, John gives us his purpose statement for the entire Gospel account:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name  (John 20:30-31).
It is clear what John is doing here. Jesus speaks to Thomas, but in a way, He is speaking past Thomas, to all of the readers. We get to hear Jesus’ declaration as a message to us as well. It is not a lesser form of revelation to hear of Christ through the Word than to see Him in the flesh. In fact, Jesus here positively declares that those who hear and believe are truly blessed. Many Christians think that their faith would be so much better if only they could see Jesus for themselves – Jesus disagrees.
When I meet Christians enamored with productions like The Chosen, I’m left scratching my head. Why would we settle for something which goes against God’s law, alters the events of Jesus’ life, and takes us away from the Word of God? Surely it is far greater to regularly commune with God through His Word, sitting daily under its instruction, that our affections would be shaped by God and stoked into a greater zeal by the true Christ! For Christians who have been caught up with shows like The Chosen, my simple desire would be to point you back to the Word of God, and to discover something far greater for your soul.
Joe Cristman is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Redeemer PCA in Lombard, IL
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When you think of a work that has Jesus the Messiah as its sole subject, you would reasonably assume that the text is heavily dependent on the New Testament, and primarily the Gospels. But when you look through the text, roughly two-thirds of the passages used are Old Testament. That alone suggests its prophetic nature.

We [The Daily Declaration] present the first of a series on the prophetic voice inherent in Handel’s musical masterpiece, Messiah. This piece of sacred music presents God’s word to listeners, speaking of comfort, strength and ultimate victory for those engaging in spiritual battle.
A few months ago, Warwick Marsh asked me if I would write an article on Messiah, the Sacred Oratorio composed by George Frederick Handel (1685-1759), as we both felt that it was relevant to Daily Declaration readers, not merely as a celebration of one of the greatest musical masterworks in history, but primarily for the fact that we both felt it possesses a powerful prophetic anointing, which I’m not sure that the man who compiled the text entirely from Scripture, a rather vain and pompous aristocrat, Charles Jennens, was at all aware of.
But I realised very quickly that the subject simply couldn’t be covered in just one article, that the whole piece is so steeped in prophetic power. So, this will be the first in a series.
Reverberations Through the Ages
Before I get started, I want to appeal to those of you whose eyes just began glazing over when you saw this is about classical music, as though it’s just so stuffy and boring, especially when you compare it to the wonderful and inspiring contemporary worship music we’re blessed with today, or the secular music you may listen to. How can you possibly compare such out-of-date stuff to that?
The fact is that, without the music of Handel, and every great composer before and since, modern rock and other contemporary genres simply wouldn’t exist, and to listen to the masterworks of classical music with fresh ears will reveal why that is the case.
If any evidence were required, I can even go to the extreme of Heavy Metal, which my son loves in all its variants. He once loaned me a DVD series on its history, and the director of the documentary, who was also the “talking head”, first charted its origins to three particular classical composers: J. S. Bach (a direct contemporary of Handel — 1685-1750), Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), the first two being the inspiration for Hard Rock and Metal’s modal “Gothic” sound, and Paganini the violin virtuoso, whose showmanship is the model for every Rock guitarist, and whose style is a distinct influence for virtually every rock guitar solo.
If any proof were needed, here it is. First, compare the first three minutes of the Bach Toccata and Fugue for Organ with this clip for rock guitar.
Then listen to Wagner’s famous Ride of the Valkyries followed by its rock adaptation.
And finally to Paganini: (1) (2)
So much for “stuffy and boring”!
So, if you listen to the music clips from Messiah in this series of articles in the same way as you do the latest worship songs you will find that music is music, that there are many similarities, but they’re using different instrumentation and vocal techniques. To draw an analogy with speech, it’s not a different language, like English and French, but merely a different accent, like Aussie and American.
That’s because great music, of whatever genre or time period, has a paradoxical effect: it is both anchored in its own time, and yet timeless, all at the same time (actually, the same thing can be said in relation to the Bible).
So, in one sense, it is identifiable as belonging to the time and place it was composed; yet it can still profoundly impact us today — and that in a powerful way, body, soul and spirit (actually, the same thing can be said in relation to the Bible).
That fact holds whether it’s the secular music of Beethoven, Mozart or Schubert (my favourites), or in my own era growing up: The Beatles, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Pink Floyd, Yes, Cat Stevens, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, The Moody Blues (also my favourites), or a hundred and one other great singer/songwriter/composers/bands of that time right up to the present.
The same holds for the sacred works of the past four centuries, the traditional hymns of Wesley and Watts and so many others, and those modern worship songs, some of which we’ve been singing for a few decades, and more that we’ll be singing for decades to come.
As Bill Muehlenberg noted in his recent article,
When it comes to things like the arts (painting, sculpture, music, poetry, literature, and so on), there can be ungodly and immoral art, and there can be godly and moral art. The answer to the dark side of culture and the arts is not to say no to all these things, but to create good and godly versions of these things…
We can glorify God just as much in enjoying one of His beautiful sunsets, or by being enraptured by Handel’s Messiah, as by sharing our faith with others or by singing worship songs in church.
In short, the same Holy Spirit who inspires our contemporary worship songs equally inspired the works of the past. This is all worship music! That’s why Handel, at the end of Messiah, wrote the letters “SDG” for the Latin phrase “Soli Deo Gloria”, which means, “To God Alone be the Glory”.
My plea, therefore, is that you will listen to be inspired in the same way as you do when you listen to hymns or contemporary worship songs.
So, now that I have your attention, a little background is required on Messiah as a whole.
Inspired
Handel composed the music for Messiah in a feverish burst of inspiration in just 24 days in August and September 1741, after Jennens had compiled the text during July of that year.
When you realise that the whole work takes around two and a half hours to perform, and Handel was writing with a pen which had to be regularly dipped in ink, and that he had to compose separate music for vocal soloists, a four-part choir, five-part strings, trumpets, horns, oboes, bassoons, organ and harpsichord, you can understand how enormous a task this is.
As music commentator Miles Hoffman estimates, there are roughly a quarter of a million notes in Messiah. At a little more than three weeks of 10-hour days, Hoffman said that means Handel would have had to keep a continuous pace writing 15 notes a minute!
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Written by T. M. Suffield |
Monday, August 21, 2023
Discipleship is inefficient. It’s slow, it’s messy, it can involve going the wrong way for large periods of time, it’s painful, and it always involves suffering. Berry argues that we have come to understand nature to engage in production rather than work in cycles. Churches don’t ‘produce’ anything, but I think if we think of trees as conveyor belts for the making of fruit then we can end up thinking the same way about Christian ministry: we do these things to get that fruit. Instead, trees die and rise again each year bursting with fruit and then dying and then bursting with fruit.

Neil Postman argued that our metaphors demonstrate our thought patterns. I’ve argued that our metaphors fence our thought patterns such that we can’t think outside of them.
I suspect the relationship here flows in both directions rather than simply downstream, but metaphor and thought connect in important ways. When we use machine language to describe ourselves, we both reveal that we think we’re machines and we persuade ourselves that we are machines.
Reality, as it always does, pushes back. We should be concerned by thinking that humans can recharge, because it undermines the Biblical reality of rest in the gathered people of God. We should be concerned by the idea that we need to process things rather than think or feel them.
Wendell Berry, in his essay ‘Agricultural Solutions for Agricultural Problems,’ argues that after the industrial revolution the machinery metaphor has changed how we think. He highlights three examples, each of which I think is worth reflecting from the perspective of church ministry.
Efficiency
Berry argues that we now see efficiency as an end. We assume that the best thing for each thing we do is for it be run efficiently, because that’s what a good machine looks like.
We would commonly criticize public services for being inefficient, but why should a particular service that the government offers be efficient? I want to react against the question—after all, they’re spending my money as a taxpayer—but I think seeing efficiency as an inherently good thing is a product of these shifts, and an arguably less humane one. This is not saying that efficiency is bad as a means to good ends, but it becomes bad when it is pursued as an end in itself.
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