Dallas Shares His Profound Experiences with GOD in Israel | Grafted Interview

i think it was not a coincidence that it was in magdala the birthplace of this woman it's just amazing to watch the gospel go forth with such powerful creativity it's causing people to say i'm reading my bible now more sam let's welcome mr dallas jenkins i love you guys i love what you do probably three times i have just been so moved watching your uh reactions to episodes into scenes uh the time that you guys watched jesus forgiving mary and how you couldn't talk for about 30 seconds it was one of it was one of the one of the most moving moments of my career um wow because i really i really respect where you guys are coming from and also um you guys kind of came onto the scene around the time that episode 5 came out which was the episode that uh caused so much controversy and i was getting and i don't mind this genuinely doesn't bother me but i was getting attacked more than ever before about the show and people were like so um i mean i was getting people not just the usual haters and not just the great people who are crazy but then people who were like long time supporters of the show who were saying my heart is broken i can no longer support the show kind of thing man because of because of how jesus and john the baptist talked and because of jesus's sermon prep and um and the mary magdalene thing and around that time you guys had already put out one video maybe but then you did a second one and one of them was about you were you analyzed the jesus john conversation yeah and you it was so great and so heartwarming for me because and so con affirming because you not only weren't coming at it from a defensive perspective like i had to be i kind of had to be like all right guys here's what i was trying to do here's why i support it here's why i don't i'm not i'm not going to change it here's why i like it yeah but you guys were like the opposite you were just completely like this is so great this is just how they talked and i was you i was sending it to people going yes this is what was behind this and my messianic jewish uh rabbi consultant so one of the is a guy by the name of jason sobel um who's one of our who's a friend of mine by the way oh i don't think i knew that yeah we're buddies well that's great but he had the he was he affirmed in the same way we actually did our usual post episode um video discussion with a catholic priest and rabbi jason and then evangelical scholar and he was like this is how jews talk to each other like this is like like the notion that jesus and john the baptist would be all formal and reverent and whatnot he's like this is our love language this is how we like like we bicker and that's that's actually like an act of love and i was like no i grew up they're cousins i know i just i know and i grew up actually in um deerfield illinois which is one of the most interesting religious towns in the country because it's segregated exactly how a stereotype would say the jews all live in one part of the cu of the town and they're all wealthy and the christians all live in this other part of the town and they're on the other side of the tracks and then the catholics all live in this one part and um so i grew up in this uh i had like a lot of my friends were jewish and i would go over to their house and i was like man why are they so mean to each other all the time and uh and it was like no no this is where like it's an italian kind of thing but anyway exactly so appreciate i so appreciated it it was a bomb to my soul i didn't need it wasn't like because i was hurt it was just because i was like i'm okay yes i'm not crazy this is right this was actually not only not a bad thing this is actually a good thing i just anyway long story short uh you guys are terrific and uh a lot of people are really blessed by it and um we really love you over at the chosen man we appreciate you and your team and everything you guys are doing it's it's incredible like it blesses our socks off i mean it's it's just amazing to watch the gospel go forth with such powerful creativity it's like telling telling the most captivating story that's ever been told and putting all of your heart soul and energy and strength into it i mean you are loving the lord with all of your heart soul mind and strength and that that's like come on there's nothing like it there's nothing like that like we need more people like you sir dallas jenkins absurd maybe so maybe you'll get knighted when this is all said and done you know yes you know what's funny about that is if i did get knighted i'm sure there would be 10 of the chosen followers who would be horrified because i just actually met them i promise you this is not a name drop um but i i met the pope uh a week ago yeah and uh there's a it was an amazing opportunity in the shows the show was expanding but for a protestant evangelical like me right it wasn't a huge deal to me but it was it was good for the i appreciate it i was with jonathan who plays jesus and uh yeah it's funny there was about a decent percentage of people who were just absolutely horrified right yeah and i just i just laugh at it so i'm sure as soon as you said knighted i thought i bet you there'd be some reason why that would be some some deal with the devil that i uh shows my something related exactly exactly so but but no knighting anytime soon but yes you want to call me mr dallas jenkins mr dallas jenkins yes well we just wanted to start off first of all by saying as messianics and we can't represent the whole messianic jewish movement right but we do represent uh the tycoon global family we have a network in the us and israel and different congregations and ministries around the world and so as representatives of this messianic jewish uh family even as gentiles within the movement yeah we just want to say thank you so much particularly for presenting a jewish jesus yeah a jewish yeshua and this first century jewish context i mean it's from our hearts you know the messianic jewish movement is this tiny tiny remnant uh within the family of messiah and so it's just so refreshing it's so exciting i can't tell you how many different people within the messianic jewish movement are so excited about the chosen because you know we've we've been giving our lives to really championing the jewishness of jesus and trying to let the world know how important that first century jewish israeli context is and you guys have done this like nobody in history oh yeah oh yeah and it's just such a big deal it brings so much authenticity and believability i mean we could go on and on for sure um what's interesting about the messianic jewish world and and the orthodox world and the the agnostic jewish world is that i do think that it took it would have taken an evangelical or a gentile to do a show like this right even though um the show is very jewish because from what i've understood is uh people in the jewish world are very very hesitant you know and there's a tradition of of i mean back in during bible times they didn't have images of anyone because they were so uh they believed that that was idolatry and so there there wasn't imagery of any kind but i also think that people within the jewish community have to be cautious of and and i don't know if that even that's the right word but but careful about how they evangelize or how they navigate through the jewish world because there are pockets of judaism that are so antagonistic towards jesus or towards anything like this that it's better i think in some ways for them to just maintain a civility and a and a camaraderie that i think is very important in the jewish faith in fact simon talks about it very aggressively in episode three of season two um which is chastising matthew so i believe that this the the way the chosen is being done which is extremely at least i'm hoping it is respectful of and acknowledging of and immersed in the jewishness of jesus it's kind of interesting because i think the only way it could have been done was was by someone like myself who doesn't have all of that if baggage is the right word because i don't i don't think of it negatively but there's just so much gentleness that must take place in in in your world that i kind of i'm like oh i don't care i'll just knock over a few faces through this through this antique store if i knock over a few things that's okay right right and so uh but it's it's i i did really want my jewish brothers and sisters to to appreciate the yeah the the sincere attempts we're making to make this to not shy away from the jewishness of jesus and to actually love and embrace it yeah it is exciting too because scholarship archaeology you know whether people know it or not this is what you know is being revealed uh in the last few decades yeah and so you guys are the first ones to then basically take a lot of this latest scholarship archaeology and put it on screen saying this is the historical jesus they call it the quest for the historical jesus right who who he really was yeah so it's it's exciting to yeah to just connect with you guys because this is just this is what the kingdom's all about we all want the real authentic yeshua so we love it it's funny it's like it's hard for me at some times like when when imagining the text now to not picture the way you guys have portrayed it you know it's like yeah those are the images that that are in there you know and it's it's not necessarily a bad thing you know it's like yeah good job yeah it's a scary thing because obvious obviously the actors who play these characters and especially jonathan who plays jesus yeah are not jonathan is not jesus and and would be the first to stress that but um i've told this story before uh and i always tell it delicately because i never want to claim um you know godly god's voice i don't want to ever claim that i'm inspired by god directly meaning because god's word i believe is is the true inspired word of god and the show is not that but i was in magdala in israel when i was doing my first trip to israel and it was a research trip and i was at this synagogue in magdala that has been unearthed just in the last 20 years it's an amazing story amazing and both myself and my two co-writers all independent of each other all without knowing the other had the same experience of profound god's presence like very much a like knocked out by the weight of who he was and wow in that in that very space and i think it was not a coincidence that it was in magdala the birthplace of this woman who uh has been you know who was demon possessed before she met jesus and has been scorned throughout history by many people but anyway all that to say i felt like god was strongly laying on my heart and i'm not going to officially claim it was god uh because i'm always hesitant to do that but sure i felt very strongly on my heart that in several years this is before the chosen existed um i was just researching for it i said in several years your show is what will be in people's heads when they picture my followers wow and i'm not gonna and i'm not gonna let you screw it up and it was it was the most weighty but also hope-filled moment of my spiritual life in many ways because i was like wow that's really scary if this is actually true if this is god laying this on my heart and not just you know something i ate this morning and when the what what has seemed to indicate that it that it was god it's just how many people have said what you said which is that yeah they that because up until the chosen there hadn't really been a definitive portrayal of of jesus's followers um obviously we have multiple images of jesus whether it's robert powell from jesus of nazareth or jim caviezel but i didn't have anyone in my head for any of the other people that surrounded him and now for me personally it's hard for me to read the bible without picturing these people and it doesn't end up it's it's not a distraction it's not a it hasn't been a replacement for for scripture it's actually just it's been kind of clarifying so i hope i hope it's also clarifying for the audience yeah it's it's the it's the fun part about god making our imaginations what they're supposed to be is this this holy imagination letting our imagination run wild with him so i do have a first century uh context question for you in relation to this why are simon shorts so short our viewers want to know of all the questions [Laughter] so season two for some reason a little shorter than season one that that may maybe just shower zone i mean shahar's got you know he's he's a workout fiend so yeah yeah nice opportunity um [Laughter] uh that's what the ladies were saying in our comments that's really interesting yeah so honestly i actually on on the first day of filming i was like are you shorter than normal i talked to our costume designer and she's like oh maybe maybe slightly but you know and i just said well it's too late now so we'll just we'll we'll readjust maybe that's so funny but it's also uh i mean fishermen wore shorter like like workers like laborers always were not everyone the kind of the old-school traditional viewpoint of them all wearing these things to their ankles um was is a bit of a myth uh at least for laborers uh more the blue-collar side they needed to be able to move freely they need to be able to run um so they they were a wide variety uh yeah simon's got maybe a little shorter than they intended in season two and uh we we might be kind of redirecting in season three but if they come back for season three even shorter and we're like maybe we need to have a conversation no there there will uh yeah i i never want to see like the blurry thing happening on the screen no no post work like that for you yeah yeah it is funny they do all of them wear like these boxers underneath and and there's been a few takes where uh you know they're around the fire or where there's and where we had to go all right that whole take is not great because we can see black boxers uh because it's not it's not intuitive uh for us to these days to dress like that so i i've never worn a skirt so yeah that'd be a that'd be a new thing that'd be a new thing for sure but more than anything i'm glad we spent this much time talking about science i'm sure that's why people tune into grafted yeah so kind of going along with that you've already started to speak about it about your trip to israel it sounded like you were doing research and in my experience you know it's quite a bit to really get your head around first century jewish context it's not like oh i read a book right and now i get it so so you said you you toured israel you went to israel and i mean magdalen is an incredible site i'm so glad you went there a lot of people don't go there on a regular tour so i don't know tell us anymore i'm interested even how you you know essentially went about that because it's a big undertaking yeah before we get back to our interview with dallas jenkins we want to invite you to join the grafton family by clicking on the link in the description below and checking out our new website yeah we have a special download we'd love to send you it's all about the fall biblical holy days meaning the feast of trumpets which is rosh hashanah yom kippur which is the day of atonement and the feast of tabernacles so click in the link in the description below you're not going to want to miss it and now back to our interview with mr dallas jean sir dallas sir mister we were only there for about four full days i think so we we went into it and i went with uh rabbi jason sobel who i know you you know uh and uh he is one of our biblical historical consultants and he's our primary uh jewish cultural his uh consultant so he he went with us it was like four four or five of us and we just said we obviously can't cover everything so we we said we're going to stay primarily in the jerusalem area uh because it's just too much travel uh to go to like bethlehem and some of these other places so the goal was i i just wanted to be immersed in it i just really wanted to just spiritually emotionally intellectually just be immersed in it uh but i also knew i'd heard this and then i definitely experienced it was that it's actually hard to find places that are untouched by big religious churches tourist locations like it's hard to find like like this feels like where jesus was because right you turn left and you walk into a big basilica or uh whatever so um that's why i think magdala was so profound for me i think it felt a little bit less touristy uh the garden of gethsemane was the same thing the wailing wall ironically enough was even though that's not uh i don't i don't believe the wailing wall itself as it currently stands existed when uh when jesus was here but or at least it wasn't called the whaling wall but either way i was a very profound moment there partially because there are so many people there who are jews who don't believe jesus was the messiah right but you feel very much that this god connection like god the father like we like the same yahweh the same adonai you know i i don't know i felt i did feel like a kinship um and a sadness at the same time because of what my beliefs are about jesus right but yeah it was just i just needed to be immersed in it and then uh but in terms of research and in terms of i mean it is unending i mean it is like you guys know this more than anything and there you can read two extremely scholarly and well researched well-formed views on what they might have worn in the synagogue versus what they didn't wear and they both sound reasonable and they're completely opposite of each other so uh our our our departments like our costuming department and our um hair and makeup department all that stuff it is really challenging to find uniformity in terms of so we'll get criticized someone will be like that's the wrong hat or that's the wrong this or that's and we'll be like actually we from our research it seems to be the opposite and so uh it's been a it's been both a beautiful thing and at times a challenging thing and then at other times it's an annoying thing because we'll get the occasional criticism i'm like brother there's like 600 things we're trying to remember for each episode you guys are the most like annoyingly particular people i have ever known in my life when it comes to you know all the rules and what you wear and all this stuff and i say that with love i'm not i'm not being yeah sure they're called internet uh internet scholars right i mean that's like you're saying but even in high scholarship like one of the problems today is like you could just get online and so many people are saying things online but that doesn't necessarily mean that's how it was in the first century or even when you're talking about the rabbinic jewish writings most of them are third century and beyond and a lot of people just assume that was first century and i like to tell people that's assuming george washington was contemporary to today just so right right there's a lot less that we actually can prove and that's what i've been telling people about the chosen because they're critiquing things we're saying as well as you can imagine and i'm saying look the chosen is like a they're bringing it to life as soon as you bring it to life you're making decisions right that are unbiblical in that sense i mean not not unbiblical but we don't actually know right but that's actually a form of jewish teaching called midrash where you're just bringing it to life to teach principles and and so that we can learn from it's like a parable like were the parables of yeshua actually true well that's not really the point it's like the wrong question you know right so yeah when i first started doing the chosen um it was catholics and jewish people who were labeling what we were doing the most accurately and both with terms that i hadn't heard before i started doing the chosen one was mid-rash and then from catholics i was hearing oh this is very ignatian ignatius was always talking about how when you read the scriptures you should imagine yourself there you should you should try to immerse yourself in the what it must have felt like and and i'm like oh yeah that's exactly what we're doing and i've been told by many jewish people like oh this is this is a midrash this is very much like oh okay i like that protestants evangelicals we are very tend to be uncomfortable with that kind of thing we're very literal uh very scripture only um so the the the most criticism that we get tends to come from evangelicals uh there's a pocket of evangelicalism who are like you shouldn't even watch this show because it shows things that aren't the bible and we should never add to the bible right and therefore it's wrong and of course we always say we're not adding to the bible the bible's the same bible it hasn't changed since the chosen came out right but that's what i've loved about your channel is it it really does embrace and then expand upon you guys will take a clip from the episode and then take it even deeper and go even more and imagine even more and right and and do a very a form of rabbinic teaching uh even more than what uh we're what we're portraying in the chosen and so we try to tell people that constantly that this is not a replacement for scripture but it is what we believe to be a healthy exploration and imagining of what it might have been like recognizing that it that it's not all going to be right but we think it's going to be good yeah so how did you end up getting to that point to want to do that you know i mean were you right i know you're raising the faith because your your dad obviously but like you know the jewish roots of the christian faith most people haven't been raised with that so were you raised with that is that something you kind of came into your own like how what did that first you know introduction look like for you to pique your interest even want to put it on film yeah well from the time i was little going to sunday school i was always the kid who when we would when they would teach these classes uh or our stories of jesus i was always the one making jokes or expanding on them or what would it have been like for jesus to you know play like skip stones on the water with the disciples and and uh and what must have been like for jesus to grow up with his brothers and and i would make these jokes like um you know this brother is saying to his mom like oh you always take his side jesus can do no wrong he's just mr perfect you know so i was always doing that kind of stuff and then uh in the jewish side of things i just grew up in actually quite a jewish neighborhood there's a town deerfield illinois which was uh i went to this school and a public school and during uh what i called christmas but we would sell the public school we would do a mix of christian songs and jewish songs for the for the you know the christmas pageant or whatever you wanted to call it a lot of my friends were jewish so i just knew a lot of that tradition so i think that was partly the root of it but i was raised in a that was so funny to me when the passion of the christ came out and the media would say things like this is going to cause a lot of anti-semitism because uh you know christians and american christians are you know anti-semitic or blame you know the jews for killing jesus and i just i remember a lot of us christians and gentiles were like what i've been raised my whole life to believe that jews are the chosen people and first you know like we're kind of adopted into that family that promise that was came first to the jews and then to the gentiles so uh i was always raised with like a healthy love of the jewish people and uh the jewish faith and that the old testament is god's letter to the jews essentially um so all of that to say i think all of those were seeds of what i'm doing now and before the passion of the christ came out i actually said and i have friends who will confirm this actually said man i'd really love to do a movie about jesus but that shows the human side of him and i think jim caviezel would play the perfect jesus then like four months later i saw this announcement that jim caviezel was going to play jesus for mel gibson and i thought no yeah yeah but but what's interesting about the passion is if you ask people what are your top three favorite moments in that movie yeah i would say almost everybody would include the moment between jesus and his mother when he's uh building the table and he splashes the water on her face and and because it was so human and so relatable and i always tell people the chosen is kind of a collection of those moments right that's kind of in between moments yeah and so all of those seeded it and then i started doing i'll make this quick but i i started doing short films and vignettes for my church about seven years ago uh where it was actually someone else's idea initially to do for our good friday service this short film about the guy who built the cross that ultimately killed jesus so he did this whole short film just about to show this guy building a cross and he's just doing a cross like he normally does and then he finds out who the cross is for and and then he shows up at the crucifixion afterwards to pick up the cross and he sees blood on it and he sees his initials that he always puts in all of his artwork and and his initials are on the cross and and the the blood has like covered his initials and he kind of has this profound moment of realizing you know what he's done and that was the the seed of this of the stories we've all known heard many times but told from different perspectives and then the next year we did a short film about the crucifixion from the perspective of the two thieves and we see i i developed along with my co-writer all these backstories for the two thieves and on the cross and what would cause them to switch from mocking jesus to one of them actually accepting jesus in like three verses right and it was such a short story in the bible but developing the backstory and and establishing the reasons why he might have done this and it went over really well so then we kept doing these vignettes of the same stories but different perspectives and that ultimately led to the short film i did about the birth of christ from the perspective of the shepherds that went viral and led to the whole thing while i was having this idea like there's never been a multi-season show we could really explore the the stories and the back stories and and uh when you do that it makes the moments of impact the miracle moments the life change moments infinitely more powerful because you're following actually good dramatic structure as opposed to right but the bible the gospels are not they don't make for a good tv show because they're just like and then jesus did this miracle and then jesus did this miracle it was essentially meant to be jesus greatest hits so that they could prove that he was the son of god and so can i take that one from the greatest greatest hits i'd buy that album though uh yeah you can you can see him like scrolling down on the commercial those are all the back stories for what led me ultimately to to doing the chosen and being comfortable with uh taking this route knowing that there would be people who would be offended by it just not really caring just going on you know this is something i really think is going to impact people like it's impacted me keep it up because i mean like it's to me it's that spirit behind it that you do such a good job and honestly i have no idea how you can pull it off with so many moving parts but that's why the chosen works all the jewish context and all those other things that we love if you didn't have the spirit on it right it wouldn't matter you know so don't lose that i know you don't want to don't lose that it's so huge it's so big i don't know how you do it but keep it up yeah yeah well i think i think the way to keep it up is to is to consistently remain broken and surrendered which is what led me to this project was brokenness wow and i can't ever lose sight of that and and god keeps reminding us of that putting us in those places that again my wife calls red sea moments which i've talked about on our channel but which is where you know the israelites are at the edge of the red sea the egyptians are bearing down on them and they have no options there's nothing there's no place to go and the only place to go is if god turns the sea into a highway which is a you know a recent popular song and uh we're in those red sea moments constantly even though the show has been has proven to be successful and i think god does that repeatedly but it's my job to maintain that spot um and to never ever let this get ahead of me or i'm sorry to let me get ahead of it um and to maintain that posture of of brokenness and humility and surrender and uh may god have mercy on my soul if i ever stray from that and then pray that that people like you guys and doing what you do in your ministry to others which has blessed me my wife other people you know making sure that i never you know i think that's my accountability is uh is that i think what people are responding to is that is that we are coming at this from a broken place not from an authoritative place i think that's why the lord's using you i mean yeah your testimony of that humility and then also the fear of the lord of him speaking to you at magdala too and saying yeah well he can use us when we're we will walk in that fear but then you also have to follow the fire cloud i mean that's the parting of the red sea so lord help us follow the fire cloud sometimes it goes places you don't necessarily want to go but we don't really get a choice on our calling and who we're created to be right so well our other big question really is our heart is the unity of the family of messiah and we're convinced that the messianic jewish remnant the jewish people that love yeshua are really the glue that that is called to unite the family and so as more and more people realize the jewishness of jesus himself and the significance of israel being grafted into israel the covenants the new covenant even is made with the household of israel in the household of judah according to jeremiah 31 and so being that the chosen has been so successful and you're you have so many touch points with the that diverse family of messiah yeah you know the theological phrases the families to be uh unified with distinctions right so jew and gentile but then all different flavors so can you maybe give us just some insight on your experience in gathering helping unify because we see that how we receive you guys is the same heart as the messianic movement which is to help grow and gather the family of messiah expand the family but then ultimately unify the family unto his return i mean we the world's crazy right now and and we need the family to unify before he comes back so how has that experience been and all these different we just went to the vatican right i mean just so diverse yeah it's been a really beautiful thing and then that's also been probably the thing that has caused the most tension um because it's hard for people to unify and they believe that when they do it typically smacks of watering down the message or compromising um and so what we find i talk about this a lot is we find that people from all faith traditions or a lot many of them including non-believers are coming to the show and and responding really well and loving jesus more because of it and then they get to the fan club or they get to a youtube comment section and they go i love i love this show it really speaks to my faith and someone else will say the same thing and they'll go wait a minute you're not supposed to be here like you're not you're not a true follower of jesus you don't love the same jesus i do and um and so then they start to argue and then it becomes super uh intense uh but then there's also i think more of the moments of huh i didn't think you were supposed to be or i didn't know will tell me more and they talk more and they learn a lot about each other and they learn about the things that are unifying now here's the key thing for me i don't my my job is not to wade into those waters and to start to clarify for each group who's right who's wrong about what uh in episode four of season one there's a moment where jesus is delivering the parable of the nets and how the fishermen would gather all these fish and then they'd separate the good fish from the bad fish and the rotten fish they'd toss back and and jesus says and that's how it will be at the end of the age the angels will separate the evil from the righteous and and then afterwards he kind of explains that parable to simon uh and says you know i want you to be a fisher of men and i want you to gather fish of all kinds i will sort them out later and that's what i believe my wife and i what what our mission is and what i believe the show's mission is to gather people of all kinds and and then god will sort them out later and that's why that's why you see it it's i'm a very strong passionate evangelical believer i've been my you know as long as i can remember uh and i don't compromise on my faith and um and i i feel strongly about it but relationally speaking certainly publicly it's not i don't believe a youtube video or the comment section on a facebook post is where i'm going to clarify each of the different denominational differences or faith traditional differences it's just not it's not what it's meant for and there are also questions that i believe that have been debated for 2000 years that aren't settled in a youtube comment some people believe that they are you know we were told after episode five that the question of jesus's divinity and humanity was you know the question that people have wrestled with and what it looked like uh that when i showed 10 seconds of jesus doing sermon prep that that that that was completely a violation of everything that this person happened to know about jesus and that they could settle the 2000 years of debate with their youtube comment because they had figured it all out so i'm not there i'm not i'm not in this position to i don't believe that i know exactly what it looked like that jesus was both divine and fully god and fully man which i do believe i don't know exactly what it looked like and i'm willing to say that and so i'm not going to be speak authoritatively and i think that is what is helping gather i think people are coming in and going all right i'm not going to be kicked out of the the the you know the room in which we're watching this show together because my faith background is different um and i'm going to let god do that if if if if people are correct that some of these differences are significant between the the different faith traditions so it's just not my job to do that my job is to present jesus as unvarnished as possible my job is to remove the scales from all of our eyes as much as i can i want to be an ananias and just help you know do god's work of removing the scale so we can see jesus as clearly as possible and to remove the walls the cultural walls the religious walls that we have put up all taking place after jesus was here and that's michael and so that will result in some frustration for some people who believe that it represents a compromise and it's it's not at all it's just me going i'm going to show you jesus i hope you love him more and want to know him more after you watch the show and uh what happens in your church or as you develop your relationship with god is not up to me that's so great because i when i think about the unity of the family to me the most important ingredient is the holy spirit like how do you do that without the holy spirit it's an impossible reality so that's why you know the fact that you guys are able to just present the holy spirit on screen which is almost funny just to say that you know but like i mean they're acting right but that sure enough he shows up uh even years later we're watching that scene or whatever you know like it's he's still breathing on it and then you combine that with the jewish context i think that's why this is a grand slam i mean it's like you're you're knocking it out of the park and so it's it's just exciting to see the the heaven and earth partnering yeah really coming together and so it's and it all happened like coming in the middle of covid i mean you can't you you know this was a sovereign act of god i mean that he and using technology i mean everything you know 10 years ago you couldn't have done this right i mean it's just it's all right now it reminds me you know the protestant reformation happened because the gutenberg press was there otherwise the message doesn't get out so the lord is at work uh using the you're getting the message of the good news of the gospel wow it's extraordinary i don't mean to to get too excited but i just think it's i'm always telling people we're so privileged to be alive at this time in history and we're focusing so much on all the negative but there's so many positive things especially when we're talking about the unity of the family worldwide uh that it's extraordinary yeah it's been beautiful to watch uh when you know when we were in italy and i was i'm walking through the saint peter's basilica and just observing it and appreciating the artistry and whatnot i'm getting like there was a a an asian priest walked up to me and was like that was the chosen the chosen you know and wanted a selfie and we're in italy and i'm talking to an asian uh catholic priest you know and i'm an evangelical white guy from america uh it was it's it's beautiful um to watch and i love i love being part of it i feel very fortunate to be to have a front row seat at what god uh seems to be doing and the good news is is that it's it's causing people to say i'm reading my bible now more or i'm huge i'm praying more it's it's not been at all a oh now that the chosen is here i don't have to read the bible because right rachel doesn't exist uh it hasn't no one has said that it's been the opposite so that's been a really cool thing to just be part of so yeah when coveted hit we decided to make the show free for a few weeks just as a goodwill gesture and then uh our income quadrupled and quintupled as we were giving people the option to pay if they wanted to or not and uh and that was god you know nothing good no i mean it was just funny because it was god my wife calls it you know god's impossible math and uh it was for sure like god just laughing going i've been waiting for you to do this all along you've been trying to solve this problem and figuring out how to monetize this thing and when you put it out in your own app and you know because it's not through traditional channels and and it was proving difficult and then the pandemic hit we made it free and it was like like everything solved and so it's gonna be free from now until jesus comes and it's like yeah we're gonna that's that's the new model and uh it's yeah it's yeah it doesn't it's kind of a weird thing to put at the end of a commercial but it's it's uh it's true instead of until supplies last it's like but yeah that's the plan so yeah god's been working in weird ways uh but it's been it's uh we wouldn't have it any other way one of the things that we wanted to ask you is is what are the ways that we can pray for you and and put your prayer requests out there and and let people partner with you in prayer and how can we how can we pray for you and your team and your family yeah thank you well um my family and i certainly need it just on a personal note i mean we just moved to texas a few weeks ago and are trying to get settled into that and um kids adapting to all that because we're living we want we want to live where we're filming the show and so it's exhausting it just it really is and i'm not alone i mean everyone i know you guys are busy and exhausted too i'm not i'm not asking for any sympathy in that regard but uh it is uh the weight of it is just really um significant and my wife and kids feel it and tremendously and so i think the prayer that we'll be able to find peace and rest as uh as we've all talked about um which is proving to be very very difficult and that i will remain surrendered and broken and humbled throughout the whole process that's super important from the show's perspective um you know nothing is ever easy i mean it's just it's unbelievable like no matter how much the show grows and succeeds and whatnot it's like we cannot like right now as i talk to you right now uh these we're building these big sets here in texas and we haven't even broken ground yet because of delays from lumber kazakovic and delays from getting permits and all this stuff it's like nothing can ever just can ever just move quickly so um the show has been a struggle from day one and continues to be and i think that represents that it's probably a good thing that right and that god is doing something important but i think prayer that that that not that that would stop but just that we would continue to abide in it and and still remain seeking god's wisdom and clarity no matter what occurs because uh that was what hit me when i went to italy is people's coming up to me and saying oh this changed my life would this change my family's life or you know when is it gonna be in italian for season two or whatever it is and you go man we really like as i'm writing season three with my co-writers it's like this is more than just a show like we it's really hard to make a good show so that's number one and then while we're doing it we're like gosh there are people who are saying that this is you know responsible for bringing them i mean i just got an email today saying my mother-in-law just came to christ because of the season one of the chosen thank you so much and it's like man like we gotta we've got five more seasons to not screw up hard that's great that's one of our prayers too don't screw it up don't help us not screw it up lord so we can relate to that and not just with grafted but i mean our congregation her life like it's yeah it's a great heart posture so i totally relate to it husbands yes husbands and fathers you're just gonna sometimes look at your yeah you look at your family and you're like ah man man i can't screw this up yeah well thank you for that we'll do we'll do more of this and uh keep up the beautiful work beyond in addition to just what you're doing with the chosen of course i have to get you out to the set sometime and get a chance to see what we're doing and and just talk more so you've uh you've blessed me thank you so much you guys are doing god's work and uh please keep up the great work so yeah man blessings to you brother blessing so much thank you so much wow wow i love mr dallas jenkins same he is amazing he's the real deal he's the real deal he's got an amazing heart my takeaway is pray for mr dallas jenkins pray for the chosen as much as it's been so awesome it's just begun right they're wanting to do five no six more seasons yeah so however many it is 17 more seasons like like they need they need our prayers they need our prayers because the enemy doesn't want this to happen not at all so pray for the chosen are you ready are we gonna rumble with mr dallas jenkins you all ready for this [Music] we have chosen this episode yeah we have to interview mr dallas jenkins sir dallas jenkins

Channel: Grafted

Views: 50,398

Keywords: grafted, remember Jerusalem, messianic reaction, dallas jenkins

Id: 2i8yEQOyy-c

Length: 46min 7sec (2767 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 02 2021