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

Summary

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

Podcast: With The Perrys
Hosts: Preston Perry & Jackie Hill Perry
Guests: Dallas Jenkins & Amanda Jenkins
Episode Date: October 13, 2025
Main Theme: Faithfully stewarding creative gifts, spiritual perseverance in suffering, the story behind "The Chosen," and the interplay of theology and storytelling.

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Episode Overview

This lively, insightful episode brings Dallas and Amanda Jenkins (creators of The Chosen) to the table with Preston and Jackie Hill Perry. The conversation explores how God moves through our ordinary offerings ("five loaves and two fish"), the creative process and theological boundaries behind The Chosen, spiritual warfare that accompanies success, and the practical tension of creative integrity, criticism, and faithfulness. Dallas and Amanda share vulnerably about personal valleys, what keeps them grounded, and how they hope to inspire both Christians and seekers through art rooted in biblical truth and cultural context. The episode weaves humor, honesty, and moments of profound encouragement for anyone creating, parenting, or simply persevering in the faith.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Parenting Across Seasons & Relatable Family Moments

• Lighthearted banter about modern parenting and "fun parent" status leads into a reflection by the Jenkins on having adult children, shifting from disciplinarian to consultant roles, and navigating the pain and pride of watching kids struggle and thrive.
  • Notable Quote:

    "You're gonna be tired for about 20 straight years." — Dallas Jenkins [03:55]

2. Origin Story: "The Chosen" out of Brokenness

• Dallas shares how the bomb of a previous project brought him to a spiritual crossroads, leading him to surrender his dreams and focus solely on offering his small gifts to God.
  • Key Story: Amanda feels God prompting her to read the story of the Feeding of the 5,000, and Dallas later receives an unsolicited Facebook message echoing the exact lesson:

    "Remember, your job is not to feed the 5,000. Your job is only to provide the loaves and fish." — Message from Alex in Romania [11:26]

• This becomes the thesis for their work: focus faithfully on what you can offer, leaving the results to God.

3. The Theology of Divine Multiplication

• Detailed reflection on the Feeding of the 5,000 as a model for creative and spiritual work:
  • Jesus brings people to desperation to highlight dependence on Him.
  • Our role: bring our best (loaves and fish), let God decide on the multiplication.
  • Success in The Chosen came only after surrender of the need for affirmation and control.

    "There is no amount of success The Chosen could have that would make me believe that I’m responsible for it." — Dallas Jenkins [19:14]

4. Success, Affirmation, and (Real) Humility

• The tension: How to accept success without letting pride creep in.
  • Key is remembering the division of labor—offering vs. results.
  • Amanda notes Dallas’s profound change after brokenness: “It just didn’t come back…he really got it.”
  • Ongoing personal family trials keep them “so low” that they’re always dependent on God, not at risk of getting “too high.”

5. Suffering, Spiritual Warfare & Providence

• The Jenkinses recount that success has invited relentless “crushing”—chronic illness, family hardships, and challenges each season.
  • Discussion on how fruitfulness brings pruning, not comfort.
  • The importance of seeing God’s hand sovereignly in the trials.

    "If you knew the full plan, you’d agree with it." — Amanda Jenkins [28:21]

• Suffering is reframed as evidence of fruitfulness (John 15).

6. The Creative & Theological Process Behind The Chosen

• Dallas discusses artistic license: starting with scripture, building out plausible, human, culturally real characters.
• Commitment to “authenticity”: stories and character moments are vetted with a board of scholars from diverse backgrounds (evangelical, Messianic Jewish, Catholic).

  "Even when something’s not a capital F fact, it’s going to be capital T true." — Dallas Jenkins [36:13]

• The decision to depict Matthew as on the autism spectrum rooted both in close reading of scripture and personal familiarity (their daughter is autistic).

7. Humanizing Jesus & the Disciples

• Discussion on the casting and writing of Jesus (Jonathan Roumie): blending gentleness and strength, laughter and authority, making Jesus approachable and three-dimensional.

  "He’s not weak... He brings it, but it matters when he does because you’ve seen him also be compassionate.” — Dallas Jenkins [49:51]

• Rejection of sanitized, “stained glass window” portrayals for a more Jewish, approachable, real Christ.

8. Navigating Criticism & Artistic Risk

• The hosts and Jenkinses discuss how any creative, especially in Christian space, faces critique. Amanda notes the “entitlement” of some fans; both agree the only way to remain faithful is to honor God first, not public opinion:

  "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." — Dallas Jenkins [55:16]

9. Ministry Through Story: Touching Real Hurt

• The Jenkinses intentionally include themes of unanswered prayer, disability, and pain to reflect the breadth of biblical experience—not just “magical healing.”
• Many storylines (e.g., little James not being healed, Peter wrestling with miscarriage) are drawn directly from their own struggles and those of the cast.
• Amanda: “We’re not free from the lessons of each season.”

10. Jewish Tradition, Cultural Detail & The Dayenu

• The show intentionally elevates the Jewishness of Jesus and the disciples—something that has resonated powerfully in Israel and across cultures.
• Explanation of the “Dayenu” (would have been enough) Passover tradition (see: [65:36–71:14]) and its incorporation into The Chosen: the practice of reflecting “if God had stopped at X, it would have been enough—yet He gives more.”

  "If you would have only been the child I found in the temple when you were 12, that would have been enough." — Amanda (paraphrasing Mary) [70:28]

11. Season 5 Bible Study: "The Stronghold of the Chosen"

• Amanda explains that "stronghold" refers to both a literal place of refuge in ancient Israel and a spiritual reality; explores the irony and depth of Jesus offering strength through weakness and peace through the cross.
• The study focuses on Zechariah 9, Palm Sunday, and finding hope in the character of God when circumstances feel hopeless.

  "If you knew the whole plan, you would agree with it." — Amanda Jenkins [28:21, repeated in this context] "He is also the conquering king and he is also the judge – same guy. Right?" — Amanda Jenkins [78:04]

12. Looking Ahead

• The Chosen Season 6 ("the crucifixion season") is completed and coming in the fall of 2026 as a streaming release, with the finale as a worldwide feature film—multilingual rollout planned.

  "It took 86 days to film... The finale, the big crucifixion finale, is going to be a feature-length film released all over the world." — Dallas Jenkins [82:51]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Dallas, on surrender and multiplication:
  "Your job is not to feed the 5,000. Your job is only to provide the loaves and fish." [11:26]
• Dallas, on humility in creative success:
  "There is no amount of success The Chosen could have that would make me believe I'm responsible for it." [19:14]
• Amanda, on suffering and ministry:
  "We are kept so low that we are not making this show from a high place." [22:16]
• Preston, reflecting on pruning:
  "A lot of times, the trial is evidence that you're fruitful. And the Lord's intention is not to crush you, but to help you be more fruitful." [24:45]
• Amanda, on learning spiritual lessons:
  "If you knew the full plan, you would agree with it." [28:21]
• Dallas, on authenticity in storytelling:
  "Even when something's not a capital F fact, it's going to be capital T true." [36:13]
• Amanda, on artistic criticism:
  "If I truly am doing this with the Lord, for the Lord... Even the affirmation loses its name." [62:36]
• Dallas, on focus:
  "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." [64:46]

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Important Timestamps

• [05:13] Dallas recounts career failure and the spiritual lesson of the loaves and fish
• [08:38] Analysis of Feeding the 5,000—Jesus causes hunger to point to dependence
• [11:26] The prophetic Facebook message and its life-changing impact
• [16:27] The "participation" principle: God wants our involvement
• [19:14] How to sustain humility amidst massive success
• [21:15] Amanda on suffering, spiritual warfare, and keeping low
• [28:21] "If you knew the full plan, you'd agree with it."
• [31:44] Dallas on inspiration, biblical plausibility, and the show’s creative process
• [36:13] The "authenticity" rule in storytelling
• [41:46] Why Matthew is portrayed as autistic and the value of representation
• [49:45] Casting and depicting a more human, nuanced Jesus
• [55:16] On writing/creating for God rather than the audience
• [65:36] Dayenu tradition explained and Jewish cultural integration
• [72:35] Bible study focus: the stronghold, Zechariah 9, and hope in weakness
• [82:51] Announcement of season 6 streaming and feature film finale

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Summary Takeaways

• The Chosen is as much about the creators' own sanctification as it is about audience impact—each season births new lessons through real-life suffering, faith, and creative risk.
• Bringing your "five loaves and two fish"—offering what you have, even when small or broken—is a theme woven through their journey and the show itself.
• The Jenkinses' approach to art is rigorous in biblical fidelity, deeply human, radically empathetic, and open to criticism but unswayed by it.
• The show brings Jewish cultural context and real, diverse humanity into longstanding Christian stories, making them accessible and relatable to new generations—and to those who may have never truly heard them.
• Suffering, frustration, and trials—even those that feel relentless—are, in their experience, often God's chosen means to increase fruitfulness and dependence.
• Authentic storytelling, not sanitized religiosity, is at the heart of their ministry—bearing witness, not replacing, scripture.
• They encourage listeners, whatever their vocation, to focus on faithful stewardship and trust God with the outcome.

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For Listeners

If you haven’t watched The Chosen yet, the Perrys urge you to do so—Popcorn, Bibles open, friends gathered. Season 6 (the crucifixion season) is coming soon, with an accompanying Bible study for deeper reflection. However, the ultimate aim isn’t entertainment—it’s to drive us all deeper into the Gospels, dependence on Christ, and hopeful endurance through whatever we’re carrying.

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Transcript

[Sam Perry]

Foreign.

[Jared Perry]

What up with y'?

[Sam Perry]

All? Hope you are having a blessed morning, blessed evening, blessed afternoon.

[Jared Perry]

All the things.

[Sam Perry]

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 to my mind. I did not plan this.

[Jared Perry]

I could tell.

[Sam Perry]

I just thought about, like, picking up kids from school in the ordeal that can be. And it's not even ordeal. It's just. It can be, like, kind of boring. Cause it's like, okay, if they're out of school at 3 o', clock, I show up at 2:30. Why is there, like, 25 cars already there? Like, what are y' all doing?

[Jared Perry]

I feel like you. I feel like you.

[Sam Perry]

So I feel late and I'm early.

[Jared Perry]

This is really random that you even bring this up. But I always. What comes in my mind is, like, Jackie never goes through the things that I go through when I pick up the kids. I know you guys give y' all mama a whole different experience. Cause I know they might be begging you to go get slushies from the gas station corre. Cause that's the thing about being the fun parent.

[Sam Perry]

Because you say yes.

[Jared Perry]

I know I say yes too much. I just need to get that strong no in my spirit. Because you be like, no.

[Sam Perry]

I think they were trying to passively, aggressively manipulate me earlier this week, though.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Who?

[Sam Perry]

Cause I drove past McDonald's and I heard Autumn whisper something to Eden. Eden says, autumn said that she wants a McDonald's. I said.

[Amanda Jenkins]

And she was like, no, I said that to you.

[Sam Perry]

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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

The girls used to be food in the pantry.

[Sam Perry]

We got food in the fridge. We got food in the deep freezer. Y' all can eat waffles.

[Jared Perry]

The girls used to be trying to manipulate me. It's just like, daddy, you did it last time. I'm like, nah, y' all be doing your mama like this. Go and get up off me.

[Sam Perry]

You gotta put your foot down. But that has nothing to do with anything we're about to talk about.

[Jared Perry]

That's super random.

[Sam Perry]

We just wanna welcome to with the berries. Dallas and Amanda Jenkins. How are you?

[Dallas Jenkins]

We're sitting there going, oh, we remember those days.

[Sam Perry]

Yawkey is drive now.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. We got 24, 18 to 24 of their age, two of them getting married.

[Jared Perry]

Married the ages are 18, 24, 18 through 24.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So 18, 20, 22, 24.

[Jared Perry]

Y' all got grownups, y' all got them out the way.

[Sam Perry]

How did it, how does, how does that feel to have. Cuz I, I, 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?

[Amanda Jenkins]

Awesome. I love it.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. I mean it's great in that we don't, aren't going through some of the things that you just described.

[Amanda Jenkins]

I like them like, like where they're, we like hanging out now. It's more fun. It's not, it's not chore based.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Right.

[Jared Perry]

Son, he's like dedicated to pooping on himself. It's like he's dedicated to, he goes.

[Sam Perry]

In the corner to do it.

[Dallas Jenkins]

He don't do it in public where they just go to the corner of the street.

[Jared Perry]

Just in the corner, just. You don't want to go to the potty?

[Dallas Jenkins]

No, it's like, it's, yeah.

[Jared Perry]

Need some prune juice.

[Amanda Jenkins]

It's like, I don't, I don't miss, I don't miss that. I don't miss the corner pooping days.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Is some of the, the, the, the hard nose, the thing like. Cuz sometimes you're like, I, I, 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.

[Jared Perry]

Girls, they got a way of manipulating you.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Oh yeah. Yeah.

[Jared Perry]

It's like the sad face, the puppy dads.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah.

[Jared Perry]

Making you feel guilty.

[Dallas Jenkins]

The daughter just kind of go.

[Sam Perry]

I'm.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Sorry, but we're past that. Phase two cook. 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Or struggle or suffer. All the other things of having adult children.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Then you get the. Yeah. 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.

[Jared Perry]

Yeah. My pastor said that, you know, early in the years you're a counselor and then you kind of become a consultant when they get older. Yeah. And so I'm not really looking forward to that with girls. Cause.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. But you're gonna be tired for about 20 straight years.

[Sam Perry]

I appreciate that. You know, that's why I put concealer on my backs. One of the things that's also cool is that I have watched Several episodes of the Chosen 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, yeah, they're young.

[Sam Perry]

The oldest one, she loved the episode with Jesus making all the stuff with the kids. That show. She was so invest 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 an honest conversation.

[Jared Perry]

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. Do they know that?

[Sam Perry]

Oh, I'm sure Megan.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Megan told us that you guys hosted a screening and it allowed you to dive into the Word together.

[Jared Perry]

We did a Q and A with the crowd afterwards. God using y'. All. How feel to be used.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 in my life, I 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 ready for the chosen.

[Sam Perry]

How did that happen? You had a dream. You had a vision. You had a prophetic word. How does.

[Dallas Jenkins]

We're Baptist from the Midwest, so never mind.

[Sam Perry]

You were reading the scriptures. This would be a great show.

[Jared Perry]

God spoke to him through the reading of the Word.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yes, yes. Yeah.

[Sam Perry]

He speaks in multiple ways.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yes, yes. But no, but it's a little bit of both, actually. She's the one she gets. She's a little bit more spiritual 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

It's a bit of a formula.

[Sam Perry]

You kind of know what you know immediately.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. And 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 what.

[Jared Perry]

Why.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

This project and your biggest break that you got to that point.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. And I was partnered with these big 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 that reformation. 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 said, read the story of the feeding of the 5,000. Like. 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 in my heart to read the story of the feeding of the 5,000. And he keeps also putting this phrase in my head. I do impossible math. So you're like, okay, let's go to the word. Let's see what it has. So I've heard the story of the feeding of the 5000 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. I forgot. 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?

[Jared Perry]

Well.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Cause 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.

[Jared Perry]

Yeah, right.

[Dallas Jenkins]

That's good.

[Sam Perry]

So you better preach this word, sir.

[Jared Perry]

See the black church.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So in that moment, we're going, okay, so Jesus not only wasn't absent in the struggle, in the, 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. 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, 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, analyz 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. And I'm, but I'm analyzing what I did wrong so that I never make that mistake again. The numbers didn't add up. And it's very, you know, it's your self, your self esteem is struggling in that moment too. Like it's embarrassing. Like I was out there publicly and now I'm, now I'm licking 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, a guy 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 even you're like, was it a prophetic word? Was it a dream, Was it a vision? A little bit, A little bit of something.

[Jared Perry]

So sounds prophetic to me.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, exactly. Well, because it didn't come directly to me, it had to come to her. And then the guy on the other side of the world.

[Amanda Jenkins]

We got you.

[Dallas Jenkins]

We got you. Yeah. So I'm like.

[Jared Perry]

For the last few years, I've discipled young men who struggle with porn and not only has it affected them spiritually, it's affected their marriages, it's affected their mental health. I think this is the reason why Covenant Eyes is such a really good tool so that we can hold each other accountable to this deadly disease called porn.

[Sam Perry]

Screens are obviously everywhere, they're always on. So staying grounded in who we are in Christ matters more than ever. To be integral with, like using technology is not just about avoiding like all the bad stuff. It's also about honoring God in the things that you do. Click on Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 23 tells us to guard our hearts because out of it flows everything. Pornography, social media. We got a real devil that hates us, that hates Christ, that is using and will leverage all the things to go after our own integrity. Covenant Eyes is helpful to filter out harmful, unnecessary and sinful content and it tracks your activity and sends it to people who you are accountable to.

[Jared Perry]

Through the years I've struggled with porn myself and it, it didn't just affect how I saw myself and even my spouse, but it affected the way I saw God. It affected the way I, I dealt with other image bearers. And so this is the reason why I think Covenant Eyes is a really, really helpful resource and a good tool use in the body of Christ so that we can not just be more healthy and holistic beings, but also live great spiritual, obedient lives.

[Sam Perry]

So if you're ready to step up your digital integrity, head over to Covenant Eyes.com paries today for a free 30 day trial of their accountability software Covenant Eyes.com paries that is P R R Y S for 30 days free.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So I didn't respond with high either. I just go, what are you doing up at four 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 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? And he goes, oh, that wasn't me, God. 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 he told me. This Alex guy told me later. He goes, yeah, he's walking home. He decided to look up the results of the movie because he'd 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 provide the loaves and fish. 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.

[Sam Perry]

That's a risk.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. He, you know, he won't get it anyway. And he sends it off and gets this immediate response, you know, and quick, quick flash forward. When we filmed the feeding of the 5000 sequence several years later, the night before, I was walking through this empty field knowing that the next day 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 5,000.

[Sam Perry]

That's very powerful.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 have 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, or 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.

[Sam Perry]

That's great.

[Dallas Jenkins]

You know, it's the same thing with, like, the Ra 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. He's like, all right, someone, you roll the stone. He goes, guys, someone needs to go roll the stone away. Like, what? You can raise the dead, but you need someone else to roll the stone. He wants us to participate and do our part, but that concept of not thinking about or focusing on or being even responsible for the result is very foreign to me.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Writing a 15 page memo.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Amanda Jenkins]

His responsibility.

[Sam Perry]

I heard that was thorough.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Perry]

A little ocd. A little bit, yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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.

[Sam Perry]

And so I have a question there, though, because 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 is 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?

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. Just provide your five loaves and two fish. Which then encouraged me to take some of that weight off and to focus on those five loaves 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 gets to the point. The bar never quite gets to the end. Like, this is silly. And then it shattered the all time crowdfunding record and generated $10 million from 16,000 people for season one of a television television show based on this little short film I did on my friend's firm in Illinois, 20 minutes from my house. That's.

[Sam Perry]

Wow.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 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'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. Cause it hadn't been translated yet, 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.

[Jared Perry]

That's really good. That's really good. And I want to go to the flip side of all of this success and what the success also may bring, which is spiritual warfare. I think about spiritual warfare a lot because it's a cost to be effective. Right. I think about spiritual warfare we go through of just teaching people how to defend the gospel against other religions. Teaching people how to be married right way. Like the public slander or whatever. And I can only imagine the spiritual warfare you guys went through having affected millions of people with this show. So I would like to hear from both of you guys because it affects a family.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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 that old stuff was gonna come back. Some of the narcissism tendencies and stuff. And it just didn't. Largely because 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 over ends. Right? Where. How those work together. But we have been kind of crushed since beginning season after season.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So 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. Why do we not like each other for a full month? You know, like, all of a sudden.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Why are we so angsty? You know, just things that chronic, 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. I don't know 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 not doing this. We are not making this show from a high place.

[Dallas Jenkins]

That's good.

[Sam Perry]

That's good.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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.

[Jared Perry]

We've experienced it too. And I think it's the sovereignty of the Lord. I love what Tim Keller said. I'm probably gonna butcher it, but something is either a trial or a test based on how you respond, you know? And I think that 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. But also to refine and reshape your character. You know, I don't think that if I would have got certain successes or my book would have did well, if I didn't have some trials, my character probably would have struggled. I would have been balding in some ways. So God has his way of, like, keeping you low.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Oh, yeah.

[Sam Perry]

And I just want to read a text to affirm this because. Because I think a lot of times anyone who is doing anything in ministry, creatively, musically, 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 you. You like. We have just a misunderstanding of how God deals with useful people. And so the verse in John 15 says, Every branch in me that does not bear fru 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. 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Beautiful.

[Sam Perry]

I had a chance to speak at Liberty University's convocation sometime last year, and it is one of the world's biggest gatherings of Christian students and I thought it was a cool example of the their mission to simply train champions for Christ. My experience was helpful, encouraging, inspiring to see all of these students gather underneath the preaching of God's Word with the hope that they'll be able to replicate the same thing in their own communities. Liberty cares about helping students grow in their academic and spiritual lives through a world class Bible based education. Liberty University offers over 700 degree options online or on campus so you can grow in your calling and step into your purpose. Liberty University online programs offer over 600 degrees in most classes are 100% online and scholarships and discounts help make it more affordable and for younger kids you can check out Liberty University Online Academy. It is a fully accredited K12 Christian online school that is flexible and self paced with certified teachers and lots of clubs and trips and all the stuff and ways to stay connected. You can check out their Lynchburg, Virginia campus in person through a one day event like Tour Lu or Experience Lu or go deeper with the college for a weekend, a three day visit where you'll attend classes, eat in the award winning dining hall. I like to eat and join student activities. Fall 2025 college for weekend dates are November 6th to 8th so if you're.

[Jared Perry]

Ready to move forward with your education, visit Liberty. Edu Perry as a listener of with the Perry's Liberty will waive your application fee. Again, that's Liberty Edu Perry and and.

[Dallas Jenkins]

I know that smart theologians have debated this for centuries of, you know, God's providence in difficulties. God's like, does he cause difficult things or does he just allow them or is, you know, you hear all God wants good things for you. God wants, oh this trial and error. If that's not from God, you need to celebrate what is from God. And so I'm not going to try to 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 like I've just seen too much. I've seen too much and seen too much benefit from the trial. And I think again the story of the feeding of the 5,000 where Jesus brought them to the place where they were so hungry they couldn't walk. And that was his doing. And so we just see his hand in the trials far too often to believe that it's only him just kind.

[Jared Perry]

Of, yeah, I think his hand is in all of the trials.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. I'm already sacrificing for this season. I'm already. We're already dealing with this. We need yet this other thing. Like, what is it that you need us to glean from it? And you go into James and you try to count it all Joy. And it's not, not, not easy.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

But it, it, it always, always, always, always, like, without exception, has proven. We look back on it.

[Jared Perry]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

And, and real quickly, guys, I know, sorry. You were going to say something, but how God spoke to you in, in one of the trials we were going through with our kid, saying if you knew the full plan, you would agree with it.

[Amanda Jenkins]

I mean, I love how you're talking about. That was like, that's past tense. This was just like. I was. I 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 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 depicting the crucifixion and I'm watching our actors portray these different moments. And now we've seen the development of these characters when 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 watching him die, I can't even imagine. Imagine. Because my questions that are based on nothing as horrible as Christ's crucifixion, which is 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. It's like a fire hose of experiencing these things on a real level.

[Jared Perry]

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 were this poem called the Fall where we kind of did. I played Adam and she played Eve, and it was kind of the conversation pre fall, like after the fall. You remember that? Yeah, that was back in the day.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sam Perry]

That's a tbt.

[Dallas Jenkins]

That's a deep cut.

[Jared Perry]

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

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Jared Perry]

You know, why is Peter, you know.

[Sam Perry]

Like, why did you choose this Peter got muscles?

[Jared Perry]

This Peter got muscles.

[Sam Perry]

Cause these other pet looking a little, you know, flabby.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Sam Perry]

I said. But I was like, oh, that actually makes sense.

[Dallas Jenkins]

It makes sense. No, they were all.

[Sam Perry]

Because you were fishermen.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 have two parts.

[Sam Perry]

How old? They had tzatziki back then.

[Jared Perry]

It's a two part question. The first question is, what inspires your creative process? And then that second question is, I'm pretty sure you guys had criticism. Anytime you do anything with Christians, because we got you gonna. You're gonna have criticism about the creative process. I mean, we got critique for, like, having a conversation. This is not in the Bible. You know, I think God allows us to have creative process if we're not, you know, heretical 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. How did you deal with it?

[Dallas Jenkins]

We don't get any criticism, really.

[Sam Perry]

Dallas just totally being.

[Dallas Jenkins]

When you do something this wonderful, 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. But even as a kid, I was a kid in Sunday school who was like. Cause I think I have a storytelling mindset. My dad's an author. He wrote the Left behind books he's written over.

[Jared Perry]

You do have a storytelling mindset. The creator of children.

[Sam Perry]

Your daddy wrote Left Behind.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Jared Perry]

Your dad wrote Left Behind.

[Sam Perry]

Did y' all know that?

[Amanda Jenkins]

Yeah, I never had a clue.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. Jerry Jenkins. Yeah. Dallas Jenkins.

[Sam Perry]

Oh, it's in your blood.

[Jared Perry]

Oh, my goodness.

[Sam Perry]

Them books made Moody Bible some money.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Are you crazy? Wow.

[Jared Perry]

I did not know that over Moody.

[Sam Perry]

Okay, I'm sorry.

[Jared Perry]

I just. I just love that. I'm sorry. I love to see gifts. I love to see gifts passed down.

[Sam Perry]

Generational.

[Jared Perry]

Cuz I didn't live. I didn't. 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

That's crazy interesting.

[Jared Perry]

And I'm like, 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So. But I was. 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. And I was like, hold on a second.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Meaning, like, kind of like miracle to miracle.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Miracle to miracle, sermon to sermon.

[Jared Perry]

Just between.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. And I'm going, wait a minute.

[Sam Perry]

Like Mark.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. But it's like. And then this happened. And I'm like, well, wait a minute. What happened to the guy that he.

[Sam Perry]

That's great.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 you made a perfect guy joke.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Like he's the.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Or like the girl who meets Jesus and comes home to her parents. She'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.

[Jared Perry]

And it's literally true.

[Dallas Jenkins]

And the mom's like, well, he can't. It's true. So I'm sorry, I 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 with Jesus around the campfire? Late at night and talking about this and wrestling through with this. And so as you grew 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. The Catholics have idols and icons and. Well, we don't want to do that. 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.

[Sam Perry]

Right.

[Jared Perry]

Wow.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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.

[Sam Perry]

No, it's a sanctified imagination.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 jail, 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 and 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 the most, what are the stories that we think are the most cinematic that are going to lend themselves to multi season storytelling. And then we wrote literally in big words on the wall. Authenticity.

[Sam Perry]

That's good.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Like we are gonna go for authenticity. Even when something's not a capital F fact, it's going to be capital T true.

[Sam Perry]

That's good.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Does that make sense?

[Jared Perry]

That's great.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Like, it's like, even if it's not directly from scripture, it should be scriptural. So the other term we came up with is plausible. So even if we don't know that this happened or it should at least be plausible, it doesn't contradict the whole.

[Jared Perry]

Of scripture and it doesn't take away what happened.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So the phrase that I use is we don't do anything that violates the character or intentions of Jesus in the gospels. 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 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. Viewers are encouraged to read the gospels. This is based on the true stories of the gospel. 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.

[Jared Perry]

It's a really well done church play.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yes, I hope we love church plays.

[Sam Perry]

But it's like a million dollar one.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Multimillion.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Anyway and with to that by the way, like with a board of people who are also looking over scholars.

[Dallas Jenkins]

We have Bible experts who so many checks and balances read our scripts.

[Jared Perry]

That was another question I had.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, so they read the scripts. We have a conservative Bible scholars, New Testament scholar, a messianic Jewish rabbi, Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic. Sounds like, but we. 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, a red light, yellow light, green light, red light means we can't endorse this. We cannot support this as we believe is a contradiction to the truth of who God is. That's only happened once. And it was a, it was a cultural storyline that we adjusted. But otherwise even with yellow lights it. Okay, this might not be settled science, it might not be something that is provable, but it's just be aware that there will be some people who don't like this and here's what we think and yada yada. 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, imperfect 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, throwing him on the spectrum. 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 the 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. He 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 booth, 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 because he does tax collecting. He's a facts guy. The first chapter of his book is a genealogy. Three sections of 14 names a piece. Right. So he's very committed to facts. He just said, that's a lot. That's what parents of children on the spectrum often say, that this is a lot. A lot. You got a lot coming at me. He chose a profession that made him an outcast. Right. And he. He willingly chose that profession. I said, and I have so much experience in special needs community. We have a daughter who's autistic.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Our third born is autistic.

[Jared Perry]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

And I'm like, I. I recognize some of this.

[Amanda Jenkins]

This is very familiar.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Numbers, facts, outcast, you know, likes to be alone. You know, thing. This. 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.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah.

[Amanda Jenkins]

It's not impossible without violating anything.

[Dallas Jenkins]

And we just saw that would be. And I remember thinking at the time, two things are gonna happen because of this. One, families of people on the spectrum, people on the spectrum themselves are gonna feel something they've never seen in a Bible project before that God calls them to. Right. You just don't see that in Bible shows. 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.

[Sam Perry]

They feel medieval or something presented, and.

[Dallas Jenkins]

They'Re typically white European.

[Jared Perry]

That's what I love. You guys do a really good job of humanizing, like, bringing human beings to life.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah. I feel like I know them because.

[Jared Perry]

I have a brother that's. Both of my brothers are on the spectrum, but my younger brother's autistic. And just their relationship, which is people, is just different. Right. Just seeing Matthew in the. In the story, you know, he really don't have the social cues.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Right.

[Jared Perry]

That a lot of other people, like the other disciples had. And just seeing that. So you saying that's probably why he chose to be a.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Well, I mean, it could have been. I mean, I don't. I don't know if it's possible.

[Jared Perry]

And so the creativity seems very intentional.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Which I appreciate it in the show, 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, Matthew is on the spectrum, you immediately go, oh, that's what this show. This is a human show. This is about human beings. 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 disciple. They all look the same.

[Sam Perry]

The same, Bartholomew. We don't know nothing about that man.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Exactly. Exactly. So they're all one. And so by. 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. 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 hallow 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 see, 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. But he is a human. Like, those are the kinds of things. And by portraying Matthew as autistic, yes, it started with Scripture, and we definitely infuse it with Scripture, but it's a humanity that you don't typically see in artistic portrayals.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah, that's good. I was gonna 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 in the Chosen is like. You ever read Gentle and Lowly by.

[Jared Perry]

I think it's Dane Orland or. What's the name? Orland.

[Sam Perry]

I didn't mess his name up. One of the Orlands.

[Jared Perry]

Sorry, Ray Ortlin with him on the West Coast.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, I know. I haven't read it, but I know what you're talking about.

[Sam Perry]

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 did.

[Jared Perry]

Yeah.

[Sam Perry]

He created laughter, so I suspect respect. He would laugh. You understand what I'm saying? Or he over here talking to John the Baptist and he like, hey, man, chill out, like, Or. But when he's talking to the Pharisees, it's this anger that's righteous. And 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?

[Dallas Jenkins]

Well, here's what's interesting. First of all, to your point, I 100% agree that by. Just by seeing Jesus laugh With his friends, you go, we've had so many people go, well, 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. And kind of just as cousins kind of 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 of kind. 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. That's not at all how it would have been. And it certainly wouldn't have attracted children. It wouldn't have attracted crowds of thousands like it did. We've kind of. I don't want to use the term whitewashed, but I think we've almost kind of Europeanized or Westernized or religiousized. Religionized.

[Jared Perry]

You can make it worse than I'll show.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Yeah, as long as you say it. Cool.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, exactly. But 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. 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 must have happened in the course of those hours to change his mind? Right. 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 on the cross. And then the last five, seven minutes of the short film, they encounter Jesus right, on the cross. So I'm casting for the two thieves. Cause 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. I realized I 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. Because all the good actors were auditioning for the two leads, right? Including Jonathan Roumie, who auditioned for one of the thieves. And I had these two great guys for the thieves. And I thought, Jonathan, I'm gonna 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 from. In this audition. I'm watching it on video from. I'm in the Midwest, and it's coming from LA. And within 10 seconds, I'm like, oh, my goodness, this is.

[Amanda Jenkins]

You could see all the things you were describing about him.

[Dallas Jenkins]

The tenderness. But man, masculine, you know, it's not like a.

[Sam Perry]

He doesn't come out soft.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. He's not weak and. And. And yet strength, but not toxic. You know, domineering strength.

[Jared Perry]

I love the way you made him talk to the Pharisees. I'm like, yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Oh, yeah. No, no, he brings it. He's not a wallflower. He brings it. But it matters when he does because you've seen him also be compassionate, right? So no one can truly hijack different parts of Jesus personality like we like to do today in our own tribes. Of. Of you might be drawn to the justice part of Jesus. And you want to conveniently 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 yada, 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 extraordinary. So I cast him. And then when we were filming, and we're filming the scenes on the cross in a rock quarry 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 more nuanced, right?

[Sam Perry]

It's richer.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 it's. 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? And I guess he must not be the Messiah because he died. He 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. 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. This is funny. And I told her the joke, joke. And she's like, oh, boy. I don't.

[Amanda Jenkins]

It was for church, right? I don't know how that's gonna go.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Jesus making a joke about his divinity is gonna fly. We're just not sure.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Funny.

[Sam Perry]

But Philippians 2, 5 did say he was limited.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, but I'm like, but, but, 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

So I'll never forget 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. Like, of course he would have told jokes. Like, they'd just never seen that before. And I remember then going like, yeah, we're onto something with this. There's something. And this was a church. I'm part of a church, a very, very Bible based church. So this is a crowd that could have easily gone, well, that's not in the Bible or that's. But this was. It was an absolute joy to see him do.

[Jared Perry]

He was like, woo, yes.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 a in that one because it was about the birth of Christ. But I remember when that led to this crowdfund 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Wasn't going to be anyone else. We did not want to see him.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Jonathan was a first person cast, of course, because we'd seen him be able to do the suffering on the cross, the joking with his friends. We also portrayed a scene with him and Nicodemus on the roof and I love that episode. Yeah. And. And his combination. Jonathan's combination of tenderness but also strength.

[Jared Perry]

He's a good actor.

[Dallas Jenkins]

He's a really great actor. He's talented and he was called for a time as this.

[Jared Perry]

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 especially in the creative license parts. 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yes, right. Yeah.

[Jared Perry]

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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. Because she has a miscarriage.

[Jared Perry]

Because she has a miscarriage. Right, right. And that's just ministry, you know. And so like, 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, how much you're thinking about other people and how that, how that plays into.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. And this, I think this question also speaks to the question you asked earlier that I didn't answer yet, which is about the. Sometimes the occasional controversy is, 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 gonna 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. 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 jumped the shark or they went off the rails 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 it's my first step vocationally.

[Sam Perry]

That is your job.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 remain focused on. I'm going to do the best that I can to honor God. And then. 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, 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 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 magician with a wand going, now you're healed. Now you're like, Oprah. Everyone gets a car. Like, we have to wrestle with these times where there's suffering and pain, even when the Messiah is right here in front of us. And so that was 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 might look around, I might be tempted to look around, but I'm not happy. Right. Right now, this doesn't feel good.

[Jared Perry]

And it also. It just spoke to me. It blessed me because as a minister, I. I felt similar. You know, like, Lord, I. Me and my wife, we put our family out online to serve you, you know, with spiritual attacks, all the things. And sometimes if. When it doesn't feel like God is with you. But it. 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. So I think that the way you kind of just gave his story just so much light, I think that was. It blessed me.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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, Amanda has said this many times, we're not free from the lessons of each season. And so a lot of times when you. You see little James, who is played by an actor who's handicapped and has scoliosis and cerebral 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, in 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 want to. To put. I. I just didn't want particularly casual viewers or people who maybe have. Have had church hurt or people who don't know the stories. To think that we're just telling the story of a. A magician who just walks around and makes everything okay.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

And so we really wanted to capture the totality of scripture in those moments. And so I'm. Again, that's a long answer to your question, but I don't.

[Jared Perry]

It was great.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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.

[Jared Perry]

What I heard you honor the Lord first. So in honoring the Lord, you serve people well.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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 show up on set. Yeah. And there's our example extras and all that is amazing. And then there's this piece of, I want to say, 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 pride flag controversy of a couple years ago where we don't have. Most of our people actually aren't Christians on stage.

[Dallas Jenkins]

A lot of our cast and crew aren't believers. Right.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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. Sorry, behind the scenes. And there were a bunch of 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. That's typically the thing. I go down my face and kick and scream, and then he rescues me from that. And then we do it again. It just loses its hold. The praise loses its hold. So 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, I'm. We're prayerful. We know what went into that Choice, it ceases, any of it ceases to have much impact. Even the affirmation loses its name.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Our fans, he's not as good as you say.

[Amanda Jenkins]

He's not as bad as you say.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 handicapped, asking, asking Christ in that moment, like, why haven't I been healed? And Jesus talking to him about, well, you will be healed. It's just a matter of time. And sometimes the better story is that you're following me in spite of your struggle. Well, as many people as felt seen by that scene for the first time in their lives, people who were changed or people like Joni Eareckson Tada or Nick V who were so loving that there was also a group of people who, 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 3 inch pride flag, a little patch and it ended up showing up on one of our behind the scenes videos. And we had a whole 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Viewers, which is strange to say because you're the consumer.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 we're ministering to and who we're taking through and walking through in this work together. And so for everybody, 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. And so that's why it's I think vital to just again hand to pack, plow five loaves, two fish. Five loaves, two fish. That's why it's the name of our company, five and two Studios is it's a constant reminder of what we're responsible for.

[Sam Perry]

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. 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

I had a feeling.

[Sam Perry]

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 cuz I googled it afterwards but it was like if you had, if you only did this, then we would do it would.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Would have been enough. Yeah.

[Sam Perry]

And there's a. What's the word for that? D. Can you teach on that? Because to me I said we need to do this in all of our churches, we need to do this at dinner, we need to teach our kids this. Like cuz 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, 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, 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 Dayenu, which is they think back to the history of their people and God's faithfulness and they say, and I'm not going to get all the words right, but it's 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, you know, rescued us from Egypt and not taken us through the Red Sea. It would have been enough.

[Jared Perry]

Black church do that.

[Sam Perry]

If it had not been.

[Jared Perry]

If it had not been for the Lord, I could have been dead alone, sleeping in my grave.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yes, yes. So we, we do in white churches too. It's just a little bit more, just a little bit more tucked in. It's a little bit quieter how it sounds.

[Jared Perry]

I was gonna do it, but I don't wanna offend nobody.

[Sam Perry]

It just would have been enough.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Jesus.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Jesus is my portion and it is enough. Yes, yes. Yeah. Speak into the microphone and stand 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 full.

[Sam Perry]

It's like a promised mass. Y' all be in and out, in and out.

[Dallas Jenkins]

But also I come to, I, I've, I've come to some of my, the churches of my black brothers and sisters and not only did I miss lunch, cuz it went so long.

[Amanda Jenkins]

So hungry.

[Sam Perry]

So hungry.

[Dallas Jenkins]

My hands hurt. How do you clap for so long? The same chorus over and over.

[Sam Perry]

It's the Holy Ghost goodness.

[Dallas Jenkins]

I'm like, you got your hands have to have calluses on them. Cuz my, I'm like, my painful.

[Sam Perry]

That's why they start slapping they thigh. They got to move.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Another thing like we're standing up again. Okay. How dare you sit down when Lord. The Lord not done enough for you. You can't stand for him.

[Sam Perry]

Come on, Dallas.

[Dallas Jenkins]

I'm like, yeah, I hear pedag coming out of you.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah, yeah, I hear.

[Dallas Jenkins]

No, I got a little bit of me. I got a little bit.

[Amanda Jenkins]

So he came in with none of the gifts, but he might be le.

[Jared Perry]

You better speak over your husband.

[Sam Perry]

Your last name is Jenkins.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Exactly.

[Sam Perry]

Jenkins. That sound black to me.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Exactly. Dallas. I mean it's a whole. It's.

[Sam Perry]

I'm just saying.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, declare exactly. Exactly. Okay, so all that to say now back to being behaving. So the Jewish people do this and it's this really beautiful thing 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, 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 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, 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 dayenu, their own personal dayenu. And they came and they. 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 might say in your church. But they all each share. If, you know, if you would have, like Lazarus sister, if you would not have healed Michael, my brother, you know, it would have been enough. But you did, you know, and, 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, the perfume over your feet in front of the religious leaders, it would have been enough. And then big James, ultimately, at the, at the, at the Last Supper, says to Jesus, if you would not have brought the Messiah in our lifetime, yeah, it would have been enough. But you chose here, you chose now, you chose us and you.

[Sam Perry]

Enough.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. And so these are all things.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Every time, every time it wrecks me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam Perry]

That scene was wild to me. I just, I had never heard of that.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah. And so it's. That's, that's an example of combining scripture.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 believe is plausible and applicable to us. And so, yeah, there's been people all over the world who've said, we're now doing our own dayenus because we'd never seen that before. And more gentiles are doing Jewish practices and rituals because of the Jewishness of Jesus than ever before.

[Jared Perry]

And I can imagine how the Jews, Jewish people appreciate.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 dances and all these things that we've never seen before. This isn't the white westernized Jesus. This is a Jewish Jesus and they're loving it.

[Amanda Jenkins]

That Piece of the show too has been such. 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. 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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

But that is what leads. That's the Bible studies and the devotional books. That's where we do get to explore some of that even more.

[Sam Perry]

Yeah. So season five, you guys have a Bible study. The title is, I think, the Chosen and the Stronghold.

[Dallas Jenkins]

The Stronghold of the Chosen.

[Sam Perry]

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?

[Amanda Jenkins]

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.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Hold strong. I mean, like literally strong.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Retreat and remain strong. Yeah. And so this idea of. In Zechariah 9, our season 5 is the. 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 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. 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 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 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 this 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. We have this 2020 vision and we go, oh, okay. I obviously they should have hoped. Obviously a good thing was coming, a victory was coming, and it's just a reminder. It's same is true for us. It's what's promised. You're overcomers.

[Jared Perry]

That's good.

[Sam Perry]

My question for you is even considering the scenes from season five in relation to the circumstances people might be in season 5 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 the chariot. And so that's ironic that the 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Yeah.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Okay.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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.

[Sam Perry]

Come on. You be in the book.

[Amanda Jenkins]

I know. I know my stuff.

[Dallas Jenkins]

You'd hope so.

[Sam Perry]

Everybody in the day, David puts him.

[Amanda Jenkins]

On a donkey, he enters the city as king because he. 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. We're entering. It was. 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 warhorse, which is what I love in Revelation, Jesus is coming back on a warhorse. And I literally cannot wait. This is my fighting side.

[Dallas Jenkins]

This is my Loveland language.

[Amanda Jenkins]

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, you.

[Jared Perry]

Know, and the contrast that he came to bring peace, but he was come.

[Amanda Jenkins]

Back to, you know, 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 this. There's a time for peace and there's a time for war. And he makes both.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Well, and that's a great word. We filmed season six, just not right. The crucifixion season.

[Sam Perry]

I've seen the clips.

[Dallas Jenkins]

It looked like.

[Sam Perry]

Like it was emotional.

[Dallas Jenkins]

I got to make it out.

[Jared Perry]

I want to see it in person.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, that's going to be amazing. Yeah. But we have a scene where John and Mary Magdalene wrestle with this. They go at. At the foot of the cross. They go to Jesus and they say, why? Like that. When we were writing all the sequences of scripture, we thought, okay, they're watching Jesus for was 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, you know, engaged with him in some way. And so at one point, we have Magdalene and John approach and just saying, why does it have to be like this? Why does it have to be so? The torture, the pain. Why? 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 a stop 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 does it have to be so painful? 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 esteemed 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 says in season six of 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 like. 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, you know, God put on her heart. If you knew the whole plan, you would agree with it. You just can't see the whole plan. 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.

[Amanda Jenkins]

And I am overcoming my oppressors because.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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 affliction that brought us peace. So the stronghold of the chosen is, as you said, there's an there that it's not the kind of stronghold we would imagine.

[Jared Perry]

Wow, that's good.

[Sam Perry]

Well, we just want to thank y' 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 can not just watch, but also get in the text. You know what I'm saying?

[Dallas Jenkins]

We're not watching TV shows in heaven.

[Sam Perry]

I kind of hope we are. Well, I think we bringing our gifts up there. Maybe.

[Dallas Jenkins]

But the TV show is. Isn't the end game.

[Sam Perry]

That's true. It's pointing you the artist didn't have to paint anymore.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Well, that's actually a good point. So maybe we'll still get to do some stuff.

[Sam Perry]

Maybe.

[Dallas Jenkins]

But it's not the end game. The ultimate. It's to point you to the thing. Yeah, I mean, I just want to.

[Jared Perry]

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 a whole bunch of stories. And you guys continuing that, not adding on to the world, but just painting this picture for us to see. It's been beautiful to watch.

[Sam Perry]

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 all the Bible studies. And season six is coming. Do we know when it's coming?

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. Let's get. We're season six. Well, it took 86 days to film.

[Jared Perry]

Get to work, bucko.

[Dallas Jenkins]

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. 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.

[Sam Perry]

That's dope, though. It's worth it.

[Dallas Jenkins]

Yeah, it'll be worth it.

[Sam Perry]

It's worth it.

[Jared Perry]

Whatever you got in the future, let us know. We'll watch it.

[Sam Perry]

Thank you, Jenkins. Thank you, Saints and Nates. 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 Hop and music by Swoop. Thank you for listening. Now go with God, Sam.