Behind the Scenes of 'The Chosen': That Jesus Wink, Rough Characters & No Hollywood Money | Ep 288

i am unashamed what about you [Music] so we are super excited to welcome dallas jenkins into the unashamed lair i am super excited i mean we have been talking about you for so long and so i have to say i was getting emails about the chosen for over a year i mean they people kept what they have you seen this yet have you seen this yet and i watched so little television that i didn't even know and plus i'm in that age group that's kind of challenged not as bad as dab of clothes right so i so i was like what is this thing so jase and missy finally launched into it and then got us all you know up to speed so but we're super excited about having you here well yeah i've been hearing chosen fans as well who you mentioned it on a recent episode where you just said missy's been watching it watching it so i finally watched one episode and i loved it and the chosen army as we call them all they they blew up i started getting social media messages and everything saying they're talking about you on a shame you got to go on the podcast and then i got a text from you yeah uh out of the blue that's right because we have a mutual friend we feel them of all people and i'd already sent a note to zach who's our who helps us with podcast my cousin and i was like can you find me some content information for it looks like dallas jenkins is the one who puts all this together i said i really want to get him on here so i don't hear anything from zach for like a week which is typical and then all of a sudden fell i'm just randomly like i don't remember asking about it but he just sends me your contact info he said you need to talk to him we shared a editor maybe or something or yeah yeah and he was like i think he would be fantastic i said i've been trying to get this guy so it's like you know what's weird is i didn't know all this was going on but i've called zach once a week for the past two or three months and said have you asked this dallas jenkins to be on our show he's like yeah that's a great idea every time i asked it he acted like it was the first time he'd ever heard him i was like even if they say no it's fine i was like but i had mentioned the show quite a few times because i watched it the first time and i told you before we started started filming i think when we had our little binge watch one night and i just kept looking at missy and she had a smile on her face like the entire episode on into the next one i was like now this is this is something here and i was look i ran the whole emotional roller coaster just watching me because it's moving and uh so i'm i'm tickled pink that we can perhaps combine unashamed nation with the chosen army oh man they are so excited that i'm that i'm going here and uh i'm here in person because your mom yeah because when you promised that miss k would would would feed us if we came that's the back i'm not doing zoom like i want to see you face to face well what's funny about that is so so for some reason and now i realize it was it was suggestive your name is dallas so i thought you were from dallas right but i didn't i did i was like i thought you were in the dallas area and so i was like if you're ever over here because you know we're pretty close to dallas and you said you were like where are you over here in west florida where are you at he's like oh we're from chicago i was like oh my goodness so then we worked it out for you to come because i promised him i said look if you come if you'll come here in studio i said we'll have a miss cave meal and so what the audience can't see is not your whole family as well yeah i'm bringing i brought my my three of my kids and my wife who all grew up on duck dynasty and uh all wan you know have seen miss k's meals but haven't participated in so yeah we're experiencing today you got a good one coming what gave you all the idea to do this because i'm not a big tv watcher but you know jesus number one across the board and then matt dillon is is right underneath him y'all dad watches a lot of guys y'all cut dylan out now the chosen that's come up in there that's an actual compliment he's really i mean you're getting up there towards matt dylan i learned from that chosen i watched them the other night i learned that seeing something is far more powerful than reading something reading about something yeah the scriptures y'all were able to bring bring that to life because if you think about it if jesus showed up in 2021 years since he came out of the virgin mary if he showed up in modern day america i'm just afraid he would catch the same kind be the same kind of confusion in the religious world i don't think much has changed i don't i think they would say what in our world right what about do you think they would do that oh absolutely and that's actually one of the reasons why we did the show was um i love god's word and i've been raised on god's word but there is something about when you when you can see it and feel it and we try to make you even smell it like when you're watching the show we try to put you there and when jesus looks at the people that he encountered my goal and my job as the as the filmmaker is to make you connected to the people who actually met him i believe if you can see jesus through the eyes of those who actually met him you can be changed in the same way they were you can identify with their struggles if you can identify with their questions and say he struggled with money he struggled with taxes he was like simon peter you know he was trying to provide for his family but he couldn't that's like me or in the case of nicodemus you know the pharisee like i'm a lifelong religious person i've been going to church my whole life what and that's that's where your question comes in which is would i recognize jesus if he came and when nicodemus in episode six of season one has this debate with shmuel who's the other pharisee and shmuel is saying this can't be the son of god because and he starts quoting old testament verses and he's he believes he's really protecting god's word he really believes it and nicodemus is saying well but what if there's more what if what if what if this if the son of god you know really came here what and we saw him would you know it would you recognize it and i think that i think those are debates we have now every time we hear something that doesn't fit into our box it scares us and so yeah i really wanted the viewer to be able to see jesus you know if you look at the disciples they were viewed as unschooled ordinary right men and all these religious leaders of the day said what what is this all about i mean how these people know anything about the the messiah the savior or the world these dudes they've never been to any kind of theological school that's for sure and it they would just it was a hard sell even then i think would be the same now you know but uh y'all did a great job in presenting that well i don't cry that much but that brought more than once well i mean tears come out of me there's like i don't cry easily but boy after watching that i'm like you know it was real there's moments where that happened i mean when jesus was talking to the samaritan woman i mean i don't know i guess you're looking at it so much you know but that just there was something about the girl that was acting as a samaritan woman and just in that moment there just because it's a story that we all know yeah and somehow that the passion was lacking you know when you read it but when you see it on screen based on her lifestyle and i think the fact that she kind of started having a religious conversation right off the bat where you know talking about where you worship and if you were a prophet you know that just kind of gets lost of the emotion of her encountering the messiah in this moment and being filled with such crazed joy well there's two really important things about that scene that's because that's the the final scene of season one is jesus's encounter with the woman at the well and two things are going to make that scene more powerful if we do it right one is getting to know her a little bit before she encounters jesus because whenever you see a bible movie or a jesus movie specifically it tends to go from bible verse to bible verse miracle to miracle you don't know anything about the people that jesus is encountering and that's because in the bible the bible wasn't written to be a tv show or to give you character development it was to show that jesus was the son of god and point people tell you what happened yeah these are jesus's greatest hits right to prove that he was the messiah yeah well we want to introduce you to those people that encountered him and what what their before must have been like my wife that the chosen devotional book and she talks about the before and who we are before we encounter christ and when you can identify with that when you can set that up properly then that god moment is truly empowerful truly powerful so yeah we see her a little bit earlier in the episode but then also when you get the cultural context and historical context that's what a good preacher does is they show you a bible story and they say okay here's what's not in the strip but that we that we know about we know what the pharisees were doing at this time here's how why the samaritans and the jews hated each other so much here's why this was such a big deal for jesus to be talking to this woman in the middle of the day and when you get that then that encounter really starts to hit you yeah and also in the backdrop of our culture is there's so much division there's so much racial tension with all the things that are going especially the last couple years i think that also adds into it because it's like here's here's the way jesus is the way to bring people together by focusing on the similarities that we don't focus on that we're all you know wanderers we're all flawed people we're all trying to make sense of life and here he comes you know speaking the truth one other thing i wanted to ask is who is the brain trust because i know when i'm watching this as someone who's been studying this book since i was 14 so do the math almost 40 years because i can see there had to be a there there had to be meetings in rooms where people are talking now how are we going to do this and let's not screw this up because you're you're basically trying the weight of trying to present the creator of the universe in human form even though we have the bible it's just a weighty matter so i was wanting to know kind of who the the writers are the brain trust or what how did that come about yeah so uh there's two other writers besides myself so the three of us get together and we spend a weekend um this this was a few years ago when i first had the idea for the show and we decided we were going to do it we got together for a weekend and thought through the whole show we wanted to know all right if we get to do all seven seasons of this show we know where we know in the bible where it ends you know the crucifixion and the resurrection so how do we work our way backwards to make it so that that is really impactful and who are the main characters we're gonna focus on and and uh but most importantly is this jesus guy and we're gonna if we're gonna have scenes that aren't from scripture if we're gonna introduce him in scenes that aren't from scripture because if the scenes in scripture are like two verses a piece you know yeah the woman at the well story you can read that in about 45 seconds so there's going to be things that aren't in scripture and that is that is a big responsibility and it requires a lot of prayer requires a lot of surrender requires you to get to the point where you have to not care what critics are going to say you know you and i were talking before we got on about pharisees modern-day pharisees too um and and learning to love them and learning to appreciate that you're going to have critics no matter what you do yeah but we got to the point where it was like no we really believe that this can impact people and we really believe that if you can see jesus in this context that it's actually going to bring you back to scripture even more than ever and we hear every day from thousands of people who are saying i'm reading the bible more than ever so to answer your question though we also wanted to make sure that i had accountability because i've got my own ideas but i want i don't ever want to go outside the bounds of scripture even when i'm doing scenes that aren't from scripture i never want to contradict the character or intention of jesus in the gospels that's what wakes me up in the morning and puts me to bed at night is i can't ever contradict his character or the intentions of the gospels and so we have a bible consultants you know my my new testament professor from college um is is a brilliant brilliant bible scholar he reads all our scripts we have a messianic jewish rabbi uh who reads all our scripts for the cultural context and biblical context just to make sure that if i ever step outside of bounds that i'm reigned right back in somebody but i was in i was yeah i was in israel um a few years ago and i was in magdala the birthplace of mary magdalene and i was in a synagogue that they had just found about 15 years ago they just uncovered the synagogue and uh i was kind of looking and researching mary magdalen mary magdalene and i really felt god lay it strongly on my heart and this doesn't happen often but where i really feel like he's talking to me um it's not verbal but it's like you know he's playing something heavy on my heart here in this amazing holy land and i felt like he was saying to me in a few years this show is what people are gonna think of when they picture jesus's followers yeah and i'm not gonna let you screw it up now on one hand that was humbling on the other hand it was exciting because i really did feel like all right i'm not claiming that this is god inspired i'm not claiming any spiritual authority but i do believe that he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna reign me in yeah you know yeah and and that's a that's a good he's he's your ultimate accountability windham by all possible means yeah yeah let's take it let's do just one more in a long line yeah on the way this works yeah everybody each person doing his job offering your body has a living sacrifice it's a y'all y'all done a powerful thing with that it's a good thing let's take a break so a lot of people have asked me because uh home title lock has been one of our sponsors for a long time can thieves really steal your home's title so uh home title lock has sent us a testimonial this is a guy that stole 150 homes and was sentenced to 25 years in prison here's what he said nobody thinks that i can take their house and borrow against the house no no i have title insurance for that no it's in my name or he would have to get some special document they would call me you know what he's calling you after i've stolen the title barred against it or sold the property or done whatever i've done with it it's 60 to 90 days even figure out that they're the victim of this crime you know by that point you start getting foreclosure notices and you realize you've got four mortgages on your house not only that you don't even own your home anymore it's not even in your name so you want to go to hometitlelot.com register your address make sure you're not already a victim and enter radio for 30 free days of protection that's lot dot com use the code radio what's ironic is that this god told dallas the same thing missy told you about this podcast today don't screw it up i'm nervous same way same words i've only we've done almost 300 episodes and i've only been nervous twice once when is when missy was in that chair because i had no idea and she had been listening to some of them so i thought oh boy missy and i were working uh the other one is today because she's sitting about 10 feet from me right now and my wife is about two feet she's next to her so yeah they're all staring staring right at us i'm sweating today i actually said this i thought y'all did an outstanding job you would have thought the way y'all presented it which is the true way you would have thought it's just a normal looking guy well in the first time you see jesus because this is what some people get confused by when they watch the first episode of season one you're about three fourths of the way into the episode and people are saying where's jesus like i thought this was a jesus show but we're spending the time really building the world introducing you to the people before jesus comes along well the first time you see jesus is in a bar yeah and he's where mary magdalene is at her lowest point of her life where she's trying to drown her sorrows they said it was a glutton and a yeah well i thought of matthew 11. john the baptist had a demon and jesus is a glutton and a drunkard according to the ones who saw him down there well i'm just telling you when i saw that scene i thought yeah somebody's been reading their bible whoever was in the room that produced the show because i was you know i'm a skeptic at heart i mean how i came to jesus was because of my dad i'd seen transform literally in front of my eyes but since his past was bad i was kind of bitter and i'm like well since he's doing that i'm not going to do that and so as i'm studying i was trying to find a way around this but it's like the deeper i got i was like wait wait wait a minute here wait it just was too powerful for me to say no so you know i had to come come to grips with my own life but when i saw that because i was being skeptical as a right as a but i loved the intro it's the only intro of any binge show that we watch that we watch it every time because i love the song the intro music yeah yeah well i love the fish like your shirt i like the fish going one way and because you're like what does this mean oh oh it's lovely lovely i just like it i i think it's what it is is it's not cheesy and most church productions god love them they're just cheesy and people expect that and a lot of people say well it's because they don't have money or enough money or it's a budget but let's just face it a lot of religious people they're just cheesy what are the odds jase what are the odds that when they were out there on the sea of galilee throw your nets on the other side they're not catching any we started out when when we moved down here i said miss k i'm going to fish the river and we're going to catch enough fish that we're going to sell the fish and we'll we'll wait the duck call takes off but but i have to have some way to feed us all so i said we're going to let the river let the almighty bless us with the fish if we catch so that that that scene throw it on other sides we've been on the river and if you're doing it for a living jason and i could identify with that i mean i could big time now at that moment of the show i said okay number one it's hard to pull off a miracle because you were trying to simulate a miracle and i was like you have to portray a miracle right i'm like how are we so i was like i'm gonna cut them some slack so that was pretty good but i also made a trip to israel and what i was fascinated when i found because we ate at one of these restaurants that the dock went out to the sea of galilee well i'm an outdoors person so these kids were throwing tidbits of their food off the dock and these fish were coming up and i was stunned and our our unashamed viewers know what i'm fixing to say because i was stunned when i found that the sea of galilee is filled with appaloosa's catfish which is the greatest eating catfish there is on the planet on the planet and there's different kinds of catfish and i knew god knew his fish when they put them in well that's what i thought i said oh it makes sense look now i know why jesus god knows his fish post resurrection jesus what's the first thing he does maybe not the first he's on the bank they catch the fish and they have a little yeah they're that good they're that good that he's eating them even though he no longer has to he's what is he eating the fish for to sustain life no he's imperishable he's just doing it because he can't and he wants he came out of the grave and they were like preach to us he's like give me a moment got to get some fish watch this you know and so i what i thought though is i thought they need an outdoors uh advisory consultant so i'm offering if you for future because i would have i would have simulated i was like it must be catfish and i noticed one of the guys when he was skinning the fish that he he would have gone nobody trusted don't feel bad about this nobody on the planet is gonna notice this but as a kid who clean fish every day for years you're always going to go toward the tail you know but it was a quick scene i was like they need an outdoor consultant and so i'm volunteering my services now i i don't mind playing a demon possessed guy and type casting yeah yeah well i'm a rugged indoorsman so i i would i would like to have you around maybe but i thought i thought we got the fish there's one it's the one moment where jesus is helping simon's wife yeah preparing for fish i watch that and and he does about three times the right way and then wants the wrong and i thought i'd have cut that on the end nobody knows some of them do use that method they use them they yeah they can go back the other way yeah thank you but the one time i did that i have a scar because i i went in between my jesus jesus knows he's not going to cut that's true that is true technically you're going to win this argument but i do like how even you know i watched that interview you had with the guy that plays jesus jonathan yeah yeah jonathan which i liked as much as the show so i highly recommend that i notice there was over a million people that had seen that in about a year because it's awesome because here's this poor guy i'm like you think of the weight of what you're doing okay you be jesus don't screw that up and so uh it was just i'm so glad you did that but in that interview you mentioned something that i think is very important is that you know jesus represents man and god right and it's not really a 50 50 it just is he he's he's that bridge and so i'd like for you to talk about just how you've seen his transformation based on that interview because you could sense the weight of that right upon him yeah hang on dance let's take a break before we do that so one of the things we talk about a lot on this show is inflammation it's a it's a bummer i got none because why dad why do you not have inflammation the pristine water to new zealand came came by one there's such an oak now he is you're an oak i'm 75 without any eggs i can tell you that that's right and one egg and it links back to us trying omega xl which is a great product 35 years of clinical research has gone into basically attacking inflammation that's what this is all about so it's good for us we hope you'll check it out so here's how you get started you order omega excel by going to omega xl.com you buy one bottle you get a second bottle for free it's omega xl.com phil or you can call them 800-844-4888 that's 800-844-4888 buy one bottle get a second one free and get rid of inflammation the thing that has weighed down jonathan in two ways playing jesus one is to get it right for the show right and how do you get in character to play jesus because that's what most actors do they wanna they wanna deliver the character's intentions and he says the only way i can do it is to empty myself and let the words that have been written for me just come and and to try to be as less of myself as possible you know may he increase may i decrease and i remember there was a moment on the set in season one when he was delivering essentially a sermon to a group of people who'd gathered around the house and um he pulled me aside he got emotional and he he says i i'm this is making me nervous preaching these people i don't i don't feel worthy of this and i said oh gosh jonathan none of us are i mean i'm not worthy to be here either like let's just let's let's embrace that that's like that that's the whole point yeah that's the whole point of the show that's the whole point of the gospel that's the point of jesus is none of us are worthy so let's let's let's hold on to this for the rest of the time that we're filming this show let's never forget this moment that we're not worthy that's the only chance we have of getting anywhere close to to this because we can't do it but then the other thing is of course people when they meet him in person now now that the show is really starting to take off he's dealing with just the discomfort of that people meeting him and being like oh my goodness yeah he said that like coming up and touching his shoulder and he's looking around like well yeah did y'all have anyone to advise you because i thought you did uh not having been there 2000 years ago roman empire but did you have anybody to kind of uh coach you on what the the living quarters and because the scenes your your sets yeah i mean they were it was really a great thing i thought yeah i mean it was unlikely rougher kind of rougher than i was kind of you know you read the bible well they didn't have electricity it's like when jesus was starting the fire i love that's why i was going to say you you're balancing that he could start a fire i mean they were constantly washing their feet throughout the episodes because think about it i mean i just thought of the what what i want to say uh uh all this thing about cleanliness and honestly laws i purity y'all presented this thing where you know you talk about pandemics could go through a place i mean you know i could see how plagues and whatever could you go through a place but the uh who did you everybody to coach you on what what 2000 year old roman empire looked like yeah so two things one is i and all the jesus projects that i've seen i've seen all the jesus movies and mini series and i always felt this distance i felt jesus was kind of boring and formal and he quoted king james english yeah and then the look of it too i just thought i thought they lived in kind of in the desert conditions and it was always dirty and they were very poor and so we worked hard on our production design department and our wardrobe you did great but you went to israel just like me yeah i mean when i went what was it four years ago four or five years were the streets like narrow little passageways well once you got out to around the sea of galilee it looks exactly like your sets when he right i was thinking of that episode when jesus was healing people but he's not seen the whole time and everyone's kind of having the a typical argument the disciples are backstage while jesus is it was a really powerful show i mean it was just why it's a something that makes you look at your own life because you don't you we complain we don't realize we're complaining right and then you kind of look up if you happen to have jesus the real jesus here you're like what am i doing he's out here yeah he's doing god's work and we're out here complaining about legitimate things but we're still complaining but that the way that's for every scene um we have a person in our order department and i'm really insistent on this i always want everyone to look sweaty and dirty and we have a person who has a sock full of um uh what's that white white powder that you put on your your boots like when you're walking through so you don't get ticks like sulfur powder and whatnot yeah we just get the ticks but i got you you know we pull them off later but i feel like i said i'm a rugged endorsement so kill them later but we we get them we put dust and dirt on them all the time because i want you to feel the texture and you just said the rough the roughness of it we the walls we make sure are rough nothing is smooth nothing is polished um and that's what jesus came into and that's what's hard for people to to sometimes come to grips with and i feel like you've been wanting to talk about this a little bit as the whole god versus man thing yeah and jesus you know having to start a fire and dressing a wound and stretching out sore muscles that's been the number one thing that has caused the most controversy about the show is where does the god versus man thing stop and and begin how you know we believe i assume we're brothers here we believe that jesus was 100 percent god and 100 percent exactly so how do you explain what does that look like yeah it's very difficult to explain but did he walk around we walked down everyone's thoughts are just coming in his head he's just 24 7. he's got the the god goggles on as one of the scholars said but jesus himself said in the gospels there are things the father knows that i don't he knows the time only the father knows when he was in the garden of gethsemane he was begging the father to essentially change his mind please take this cup from us right he's on the cross he's asking his father why have you forsaken me so we take this belief that that jesus couldn't bench press 5 000 pounds when he was on earth he couldn't just you know blow and the fire could start now maybe if he wanted to ask his father for for the power to do that yes of course he could do miracles but we just we really i just think it's so much more powerful and i believe it's biblical to see jesus as a as a true human sacrifice for lack of a better term he was a man oh he became a man i mean philippians still says he emptied him said well what did he empty he said something and he did not see equality with god as something to be done that's right which is clearly he gave something up right to be to feel what we felt and go through what we felt and i just don't think doing it in a polished way is hebrews 2. he had to be a man like his brothers in every way right which that means everything that means full humanity so yeah i thought that's one of my favorite things i think what the the modern day pharisee is missing is what what's up what's really made me drawn to your show is this even you talked about jonathan struggling with that well this is what we all as individuals who have surrendered to christ this has been my struggle for 30 years i'm trying to introduce jesus to other people and you know based on galatians 2 20 i've been crucified with christ i no longer live so so i'm trying to just get out of the way and let jesus be revealed and i've shared in all my speeches and wherever i go my biggest fear in life is public speaking that's all i do now right so you're like how did this happen like phil says boy i won't shut up but i'm like it is for real because i feel inadequate i feel the weight because i'm i'm trying not to screw this up and so every speech i give the last one i gave i came home i had to go i was like terrible for my view but i'm sure it was great but but it's just i struggle with that so i feel like i see that in your meetings and how we're going to present this god uses flawed people to make jesus known that's just a fact by the way you know yeah so how far because you know i hate to see it end so how far would you go into the future he's on his way to dying for the sins of the world being buried and raised from the day spoiler alert oh yeah so you start telling us what you can and then i want to give you you know they could start in the book of acts well i was going to say that keep going we'll let you comment but i was going to say this because i got to thinking since you decided okay we're going to do about the chosen and then most shows like the passion which was a great film sure they end right at the resurrection just the idea of the resurrection but i thought well if it's about the chosen couldn't you go on into the book of acts we can um but when we first have you thought about like like half park and we run this because it's a wonderful thing you're doing yeah we want mowers what i'm trying yeah yeah yeah thank you well my wife my wife is in the room and might be saying we're going to take a year to sleep after the seven seasons of the children so we remember people said why does duck dynasty after yes and we were like because we love your show you know we were like well i felt the same way i thought let me sleep for a year right and get back to you but we when look we're we're crowdfunded i mean season one of this show is based on a short film that i did for my church's christmas eve service on my friend's farm in illinois we're we feel like we're on house playing with house money you know to use a gambling term but we we didn't know if we were how long we were going to last we don't have a big studio writing us a check saying all right here's the next seven seasons like all these other shows have um we are relying solely on the fans to pay it forward because the show's free yeah so people pay it forward to keep it free if they want uh or they buy shirts and and our books our devotional books and our bible study and all that stuff that's the way that's how we survive which is absolutely one of the other reasons that i love this because that's a leap of faith yeah oh yeah so once they start shoveling the money to you they i mean yes an array of them they begin to dictate policy well that's the golden rule from hollywood is he who has the gold makes the rules and you got it and so stay out of the weeds my man right well so this is something i want to share with you is because you're talking about um the authenticity of things and and i think what has made your show success so successful and what people have responded to so much with your whole family is the authenticity you come out and you say i don't know what i'm doing i'm not a good public speaker you're so authentic and that is honestly been a a model for me as well i mean i i can honestly say that watching you guys over the years and even the name of your podcast unashamed but just being completely who you are um has has been a model for us with this show is from day one we said look whatever god wants is where we want to be i don't know if it's going to last seven seasons which is what we think we need i don't know if it's going to last one season i don't know i just want to be in god's will and i'm going to be myself and our social media videos are going to be raw and the show's going to be raw and we're just going to follow in jesus's footsteps and wherever that leads as well it's hard to argue with that let's take another break so uh we've been talking a lot about how many guns there are out there and how many have been sold and i think i said this before in 2020 there were over 8 million guns sold in america which is amazing the problem is now you can't hardly practice because you can't find any ammunition you know to be for your gun so you got an issue here one is you want to have ammunition to protect yourself but then you also want to get proficient with your firearm so one of our uh long time sponsors itarget pro works on a dry firing training method where you have it through your cell phone and you have a laser bullet that goes into your gun and so you're able to basically shoot a target and find out you know how proficient you are so it's very good process you can do it inside you get that muscle memory which is what you need they have 223 ar so you can stay sharp today you can save 10 percent plus get free shipping with the offer code phil at checkout when you go to i target targetpro.com that's the letter i targetpro.com use the offer code feel and get that 10 off and free shipping i would say this i do think what we have in common is back when we were doing duck dynasty we our the people we were working with we were not uh what's the what's the best way to sabbatical we were complete opposites and so they had an idea of how we should be right but we're so stubborn and had our faith and trust in god that we're like we're not budging we're going to be ourselves so what i missed during those conflicts because every week we would argue all week about what we were going to do even though the show started being successful they were like this is what what you should do and we were saying nope we're going to be ourselves just what you said but that conflict actually created great tv because we would argue so much that when they turned the cameras on i was so passionate that i was right and they were wrong it actually came out in our filming and so i thought about y'all's show i was like your conflict is more with yourselves not wanting to screw this up yeah that you're thinking so much and looking at every detail and then i think the passion comes out you know in the episodes because you're just driven to say okay we want to get out of the way and so i do think there's a similarity yeah i think there's i think there's truth to that i think there's also a responsibility to the audience as much as possible but you're it's a responsibility to an audience that has 9 000 different perspectives on every single scene that you do so we'll have we'll get yeah a thousand emails saying how dare you do that scene uh that was offensive or showing jesus tell a joke or jesus being sarcastic or whatever it was and that'll be the exact thing that we hear from other people saying that was my favorite part that's what brought me closer to jesus um jesus winks at somebody in episode two of season one oh i love it a guy makes a joke about his hometown he says i guess something good can come from nazareth and everyone freezes thinking jesus is going to be offended yeah he's like jesus once did i see any of the material that you put out not once did i say well no where else is it no no that means a lot spoiler alert there's a scene i don't even know if this episode's out yet because because i noticed once we gave a donation we started getting the episodes for everybody else i don't know if that was on purpose or not maybe i shouldn't even say that no you no no people who pay it forward at a certain level or higher um get to see the episodes a day in advance so there was one one episode and i won't because i i don't want to mess it up for somebody no no no no one has all the episodes that you've seen are out oh yeah so something happens and uh one of the followers because it's awesome that jesus does and there's like this awkward silence there's america when he goes there's one of the characters who i can identify with phil you more than who has a beard like yours yeah looks like my cousin actually he goes yes i love that because that's me that's what i was thinking if i was there and i saw a miracle and it was of that nature of a spiritual warfare i'd be like because everybody else was like they're just shy goodness i can't believe what i just saw then there's a guy ready to go to world version yes i love it but i'm sure that somebody somewhere is like oh you know that wasn't well yeah because some people because it wasn't reverend yeah they yeah they'll talk about the reverence and some of the music in the show they feel isn't reverent or but but in that that scene in episode two of season one where jesus winks at him um i've heard from literally thousands of people who've said seeing jesus wink and reassure this guy that he was okay like impacted me greatly it's one of my top three scenes about the whole series when he does that little wing i love it right and i've heard from others who said well there's a verse in the book of psalms where it talks about how if you wink your eye or something the devil or whatever yeah and shuffle your feet yeah and i'm going but but that's the thing so the whole point of it is all i can do i can't please oh well everybody when you're doing a jesus show yeah and this the show is now in every country in the world it's been translated in over 50 languages catholics mormons evangelicals greek orthodox they're all coming to the same fan club they're all loving the show and then they look around and they're right wait a minute you're not supposed to be here hey you're not supposed to be here what do you do and and then they and then they start putting expectations on to the show and what what it's supposed to look like and how jesus is supposed to be portrayed and if i if i think about that and if i care about it it's going to me and so i have to get to a place where i think where you guys at where you guys right with the show i think it's a superpower where you go if you don't want to do the show with us being ourselves then let's just not do the show oh yeah let's think about it all this yeah yeah yeah just think about what jesus was up against being 100 flawlessly perfect right yeah and goes into a world a sin cursed world and he's being perfect just think how hard it would be to present yourself knowing you're perfect right and living up to that right you talk about a bone to be chewed but phil you make a good point when you did the episode you introduced jesus with the kids because i know where you got that because those passages about where he always unless you change and become like little children you know he loved kids and i like at first for one fleeting moment i'm like okay there's an adult man and these kids are running away to go visit at any other point in life i would feel very uncomfortable about this right because if there's an adult strange man with a bunch of kids that's always going down a bad road in any kind of movie and i thought oh but it's jesus this is good it's perfect that's why i was going to say about the people who are offended look i can think of every other movie that or tv series that's ever been made in the history of man if you're a religious person you could be offended about right if you just rank them in order at least this is trying to get you to think about who jesus is i mean what i'm saying you get into the secular world right i mean we're talking f bombs and gender by the way what about the secular crowd out here the unbelievers the atheists yeah they've risen up against you too i guess no they're in fact i i have less what are they saying i have less less respec pushback from that crowd than i do from the christian world we're the same way we know it's a lot of the same let's take one last break well you know dallas one of the things that struck me the attention to detail for every character or every not even a character just every scene that you see of people like it got me right off the bat in the pilot with the with the shepherd and just from moment one like i cared about what happened to it and then i loved the little girl skipping across the field i mean that whole thing you know it set that whole thing up so i i feel like one of the brilliant things you guys have done and bringing it to to film and bring it to screen is that you really care about the ones around him yes and that's i mean i never to be honest i've preached and taught my whole life and you tend to focus on the main people right but i've never cared as much about everybody around him as i have watched this series and so i think that part really spoke to me and speaks to me about that you know well that's the thing when when when you watch a normal tv show uh even a show with matt matt dylan you you want to identify with the main character right you want to see kind of the world through their eyes well jesus is a tough main character for a for a movie because you he he doesn't he doesn't change really he doesn't he doesn't learn anything new he doesn't he doesn't sin and then have to kind of overcome his struggle right and so as a viewer you kind of go i can't really see the world through his eyes but i know simon peter i can relate to that i can relate to mary magdalene i can relate to nicodemus and then when you see in jesus through their eyes and you encounter them and i think that's also true of some of these supporting characters as we call them right in season three we're going to explore the woman who who had the issue of blood for 10 years and how she reached for jesus garment and touched him and she was healed well just let's let's let's explore that what would it have been like to live in a purity culture yeah obsessed with purity where you're unclean for 10 years every day right what desperate how desperate must you have been and so desperate especially as a woman so you're a woman you have all these other rules you have to follow and she's like i can't i can't reach him i can't get all i'm gonna maybe if i just grab his garment so we're going to explore her story and we're going to explore her story from the context of that culture and i believe that there are going to be women especially who are going to be like their relationship with mary magdalene in the show and be like i have i have felt that maybe then maybe not that specific malady maybe i'm not maybe i wasn't here 2000 years ago but i can relate to that feeling of i'm an outcast i have nothing all i can do is reach out as far and as strong as i can i love it i think you've done a phenomenal job too of the women characters in there you know acts 1 is so powerf powerful to me when it says the believers were all together you know this post-resurrection and it says about 120 which is such a depressing number now i don't know if it was just all of them in that specific reason yeah region but you would think where are all these people i mean he's he's he's been raised but it says they were constantly together with prayer and it says along with the women and even in all these little moments in history y'all y'all studied so much which i think the first thing that i i want to say this that pops up there is you say this is a show uh a depiction but it says read your bible read only the opening yeah at the beginning it says this is you know based on the book of you know on the bible uh some of the timelines have been combined you know because we don't stick to scripture all i mean we don't contradict scripture but we do a lot of things that aren't in scripture but it says viewers are encouraged to read the gospels yeah that's what it says i think that should be what you send to the people who say what is that just send them that you know even matt dillon there's a warning now warning warning it says before you watch an episode of matt dillon right gunsmoke right started in the 50s 40s 40s it says on the screen outdated cultural depiction good grief they're like it's a warning here because you know you know old match you know law and order i mean he stood stood firm well to show that what they're doing with what they've done here on these episodes you know you say how much has changed between 2021 years ago as far as man's problems you said no that's the same yeah the solution it's just a reminder that we're in a spiritual war yeah yeah this is i mean have you figured out how to depict a guy walking around with a two before coming out of his eye and you that's true before you try to get the speck of dust because really you think we're all flawed which was the point i was making about what we have in common and when we present jesus in our everyday lives because i'm i feel like the power of your show is when you read the gospels matthew martin luke and john it seems like there's it's just filled with these little moments right of individuals which is what you've captured yeah and that's what my life is you know i everywhere i go and everywhere i speak i'm like everybody can relax even though i look like a preacher i'm not they all laugh right and i was like i'm not a preacher i'm a believer and i believe jesus is real and i'm not really concerned about what happens here on sunday mornings because you can pretend right to be one up you know one of the members what i'm concerned about is what happens on monday tuesday wednesday thursday when you go to the grocery store you go to school when you open up your computer and the internet you got your cell phone all these things are you having these jesus moments that he had these little moments with individuals so i think you've done really well with that well that's huge and that's honestly the the thing we've most focused on in the show and it's the thing sometimes people ask me what have you learned most about jesus in doing this show because i've been a lover of god's word my whole life my dad is an author of the left behind books he's been a been a believer his whole life i mean i've i grew up in the church but i'm still learning new things about jesus and the thing that i learned the most i think when we were going through the gospels and telling these stories is the personal he didn't come and do a ton of magic tricks in front of a big crowd he was always about that one person even when he was doing uh in our show when you see um him doing miracles uh we even in our in our filmmaking will will i'll make it so that your kind of the sound gets kind of more quiet like it gets really zoned in on jesus looking right into the eyes of that person and if you've watched the first uh so you've seen the first finale i've watched them all yeah so there's 13 episodes so far and i've i'm guessing it's probably about half a dozen times you've heard jesus say look at me look at me don't look at him look at me yeah or don't look over there look at me it's about that intimacy yeah and jesus always made it into to that relationship with that one person and uh that is something that we're trying to do with the show too is um i feel like when i'm doing my live streams or when i'm doing the interview with with the conversation with jonathan that you talked about are behind the scenes i'm trying to talk to one person yeah and that makes it feel more intimate but that's the model of jesus that i've really learned is that it's about that relationship if you can if you can avoid these art public arguments public theological arguments public political arguments and just have it be people talking it's so much more effective anyway and it also it it arouses this intimacy that that is what i think god is after in our hearts yeah so tell folks where they can get merchandise uh get the show where they can help people the books the books yeah tell our students where's the best place to go to get that information so the number one place to go and i know that this doesn't apply to all of us in this room because some of you may be god bless you a little older and don't like the app yeah but we have we have our own app so uh it's if you go to wherever you get your phone apps on you know your android or or iphone and you download the chosen we're really easy to find and the good thing is it connects directly to your television so roku apple tv fire stick chromecast you don't need a subscription you don't need to pay anything you don't need to give your email address nothing it'll connect directly to your to your streaming device now if you're old school we also have dvds and that's in our that would be yeah yeah infill yeah but i do know how to get an app so i'm glad to know that i didn't house is not short for apple phil this is it's complicated that's why we have dan the eunuch yeah he's he if you want something some kind of computer who is dan that's going to be too hard to explain i'm going to say dan the unicorn phil's butler is okay it's complicated yeah good we'll have a unique on our show too so there you go um no but uh yeah the app is is the highest quality it connects directly to your streaming device and again the beauty of it is i mean they literally invented this technology i could i could go to your house and go to your roku or apple tv and just connect directly and watch the show on the big screen right but we have the dvds on our gif our gift factory we've got the uh shirts and hoodies and stuff and um yeah you're you got one right here give you one bonus one get used to different yeah it used to there's a key line from from season one yeah um but here's something i want to say real quick anytime i talk about our gifts because we call them gifts not merchandise um because my wife who's in the room has written a devotional book and a bible study which i believe your mama's mom is doing it yeah her ladies group i think they're four episodes in and they're doing the studio that's awesome yeah but we have really worked hard to make sure that we don't ever do trinkets or just yeah merchandise for the sake of it um everything has a purpose and is a conversation starter and it's going to design to take you deeper the show isn't the end game getting you deeper into this is the end game so even the phrase get used to different people when we wear that out in public people go what what what does that mean we talk about that well that's jesus says that in episode seven to simon peter and uh that's why i brought it to you guys because i know you guys couldn't resonate with being different i heard you say you know we're the ones that bring you know we bring our little fish and yeah and yeah we bring the loaves and fish and god feeds the 5 000 but even even the shirt that i'm wearing now it's due from the opening credits which is all those gray fish are going in one direction and then one by one they turn teal the color of life and go the opposite direction and so this is 13 fish jesus and the 12 disciples all going against the current i love it but it's all it's all designed to really start conversations and bring people closer but yeah on the app or on our website i don't want to give a bunch of websites because people don't remember them anyway maybe you can do them in the show notes but that's where they can i think we got what we need but look thanks for being here we love what you do and thank you yeah you guys have been doing it for a long time and one of the things you were going to talk about which i know we don't have time for we can talk about off the air but is the model of doing this all outside the system yeah because i think there's something for you guys in that too because you were saying this on the air i think duck dynasty have a hard time being on the air today yeah i would know so i mean we didn't get it made through the network yeah but the way we're doing it now in the in our distribution partner angel studios is building multiple projects like this which are just done completely outside the system i'm telling you it is a freeing feeling when you know that you're not owned by anybody and you don't have you're not can't get canceled um and you can just talk about whatever you want to talk about let's talk about this and find me a cameo in here even if i die in the first five minutes it's okay just ride by on a donkey ride by on the donkey just just jesus walking on the road just yeah just what's the story with that guy oh he'll heal him thanks for having me later dallas thanks for listening to the unashamed podcast help us out by raiding us on itunes and don't miss an episode by subscribing on youtube and be sure to click that little bell to get notified about new episodes and for even more content that you won't get anywhere else subscribe to blaze tv at blazetv.com unashamed

Channel: Phil Robertson

Views: 270,876

Rating: 4.9594126 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: K6wF4pbu3DE

Length: 55min 19sec (3319 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 04 2021