Mark's Message - "The Oddity of a Crucified Messiah"

Illustration by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

The Oddity of

a Crucified Messiah

A Markan portrait of a kingship revealed in

suffering, service, and misunderstood glory

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,

 and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

- Mark 10:45

“He was despised and rejected by others;

a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”

- Isaiah 53:3

“See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be

exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.”

- Isaiah 52:13

“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are

perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

- 1 Corinthians 1:18

“Though he was in the form of God… 

he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

- Philippians 2:6-7

“The cross is not an event that happened to Jesus;

it is the shape of his life.”

-  adapted from Jürgen Moltmann

“God is not the power that crushes suffering, but the love that endures it.”

- paraphrase of Simone Weil

“Love is the willingness to be vulnerable.”

- C.S. Lewis

“Reality is not redeemed by force, but by fidelity.”

- ChatGPT (processual aphorism style)

“If divinity is to mean anything, it must mean love, or it must mean nothing.”

- R.E. Slater

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Preface

In the long arc of Israel’s hope, “messiah” (anointed one) most often gathers around images of vocation and vocation’s burden:

• kingship for the sake of justice,
• priesthood for the sake of reconciliation,
• prophecy for the sake of examination and repentance.

Yet the Gospel of Mark presses an older, sharper question: What if the anointed one is recognized not by triumph but by cruciform fidelity - by a reign that arrives as service, and a glory that appears as surrender? Mark’s narrative does not merely report that Jesus was crucified; it builds an argument that the cross is not an interruption to messiahship but its unveiling.

In this brief discussion of Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ disciples and the Gospel’s larger literary-and-theological aims, we see how Mark frames Jesus as Messiah precisely because of his rejection by the Jerusalem leadership and crucifixion on a Roman cross by the state of Rome. Mark’s portrait of a “crucified Messiah” would likely have sounded difficult - if not scandalous - to many first-century hearers, since it redefines "messiahship" as a path in which God’s king is revealed as suffering savior before being vindicated and enthroned at the right hand of the Father.

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Introduction: A Messiah No One Expected

Mark 1.1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

2 just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“Behold, I am sending My messenger before You,

Who will prepare Your way;

3 The voice of one calling out in the wilderness,

‘Prepare the way of the Lord,

Make His paths straight!’”

Mark begins with a claim that is intentionally disproportionate to the story’s opening “normalcy”: “Jesus the Messiah” (Jesus the Christ), “the Son of God.” Initially an innocuous statement to the modern reader, but startling to the reader of Mark's era when connecting God's anointed (kingly) servant who, if to be raised to divine Royalty (sic, "Sonship") must first die an ignominious, tortuous death, in order to be crowned.

Mark then spends the entirety of his gospel asking the reader two questions:

• If Christ is God's earthly King, then why must he die to inherit his reign?
• And secondly, why, does almost nobody in the story understand this staggering truth?

The answer is not simply “people are slow to apprehend, stupid, or dense.” The more obvious realization is that those coming to Jesus' story for the first time were using the wrong definition for messiahship. They weren't connecting "cruciformity" to "anointed Messiahship". It was never done... and for good reason! The one didn't make the other: "If a would-be king were crucified then that person's mortality would exclude him from further pursuit of royal office!" The one event could not lead to the next event. When you're dead, you're dead. You can't be king if you're dead!

In the ancient world in which Mark narrates, the Messiah was expected to be a figure of reversal-by-power: a liberator-king, a public victor, a restorer of national dignity. Mark insists, however, that Jesus embodies a different messianic logic - one that echoes the biblical “servant” pattern of the Old Testament (suffering, sacrificing, serving, bearing, restoring) rather than the common “conqueror” pattern of the world (dominating, seizing, outperforming).

In a phrase, the Markan Messiah reigns by giving; he wins by losing; he is revealed not by taking life but by giving his life.

This is where the title “Servant Messiah” becomes not devotional poetry but a close reading by Mark’s thematic design.

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I. Mark’s Strategy: The Disciples as a Mirror of Misunderstanding

At Jesus’ baptism, a voice from heaven (God) declared: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17, NKJV). Other translations record this as "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22, NIV), affirming his identity as the Messiah. 

A striking feature in the gospel of Mark is the way the disciples function as narrative pedagogy. Readers expect the inner circle of Jesus' fellowship to be competent interpreters of Jesus mission and ministry. And yet, the disciples repeatedly frustrate our expectations.

It is not that the disciples are portrayed as cartoonishly stupid. Rather, they represent what happens when good-faith loyalty is still captivated by a cultural script of royalty. They follow Jesus, eat with Jesus, walk with Jesus, converse with Jesus, minister with Jesus, but they keep translating him back into familiar categories of expectation: prestige, victory, rank, control. In Mark, it becomes apparent that "discipleship" was not merely proximity to Jesus; it is conversion of the prophetic imagination - a shift in what “messiah,” “kingdom,” and “glory” must mean in light of Jesus' ultimate end and meaning.

Mark uses their unimaginative, studied literalism, as a mirror for later believers to examine themselves in:

"If the first followers of Jesus struggled to grasp a that a divinely anointed Messiah was to become a "crucified" Messiah, then later Christians must be forgiven for not readily grasping this same fact that Christ's Messiahship would prove to be God's winnowing fields for redemptive transformation."

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II. The Three Passion Predictions: A Template for Servant Messiahship

Mark 8:31 - And he (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise from the dead.

Mark 9:31 - For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.”

Mark 10:33-34 - (Jesus to his disciples) saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. 34 And they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him; and three days later He will rise from the dead.

In Mark's gospel there is a threefold numeric pattern which has been taught as a literary mnemonic of Christ's steady progression towards Jerusalem: Three passion predictions ---> appearing in three successive chapters ---> with each prediction showing the disciples' obtuse misunderstanding to Jesus' teaching.

How the Disciples Misread Jesus

1) DENIAL - "You are the Messiah! But you cannot die!" (Mark 8)

Peter confess Jesus as Messiah - “You are the Messiah” - then immediately rebuked Jesus saying, “No, not the cross,” rejecting the idea that Messiahship required rejection and death. To this Jesus rebuked Peter and spoke to a crowd following him.

32 And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. 33 But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and *said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s purposes, but on man’s.”

34 And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 For what could a person give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

In Mark, the temptation is to teach a non-cruciform messiahship - to speak of a “kingdom” that is without any quality of self-giving; or to speak of earthly glory without a suffering, sacrificing love.

2) MISDIRECTION - “Which of us is the greatest?” (Mark 9)

Mark 9.32 - But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.

33 They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them: “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. 35 And sitting down, He called the twelve and *said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” 36 And He took a child and placed him among them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, 37 “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”

Immediately after Jesus teaches the cost of the cross, the disciples argue about status. Mark is not merely reporting irony; he is exposing a spiritual reflex: when confronted with the path of service, the typical response is to reach for prestige to stabilize oneself.

3) OPACITY - “Let us sit at your right and left.” (Mark 10)

35 James and John, the two sons of Zebedee, came up to Jesus, saying to Him, “Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.” 36 And He said to them, “What do you want Me to do for you?” 37 They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.” 38 But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” 39 They said to Him, “We are able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you shall drink; and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized. 40 But to sit on My right or on My left is not Mine to give; but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

Lastly, Mark points out how the disciples, James and John, requested thrones seated next to King Jesus. But Jesus replies that they do not know what they are asking: the “right and left” of Jesus’ enthronement in Mark is not a pair of cushioned seats - they are two crosses raised on either side of him. Hence, Mark  redefines humanity's understanding of divine glory: the Messiah’s kingly Coronation is Cruciformity, not worship. Death, not Immortality. Sacrifice, not adulation.

Together, these three scenes function like a catechism of reversal.

They repeatedly teach:

• Messiah = suffering servant
• discipleship = costly participation
• greatness = self-giving sacrifice

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III. The “Messianic Secret” as a Moral and Theological Device

Mark’s consistent thematic secret is then, a “Messianic secret,” which fits perfectly with his observations of Christ's closest disciples. He repeatedly shows Jesus silencing premature, distorted, and false messianic conclusions. Why? Because a public messiah-title without a cruciform definition becomes misinformation about God's true divinity. A divinity which no other gods, goddesses, kings, or ruling powers ever envisioned. In Jewish terms, a God who served, sacrificed, and died was truly unusual.

And consequently, in Mark’s logic, you cannot safely announce “Messiah” until you have watched what kind of Messiah Jesus is. Otherwise the word “Messiah” will be filled with the wrong content (as a warrior-king, nationalist liberator, status-granter).

Mark’s thematic "secrecy" is not simply a plot suspense; it is semantic discipline - a way of saying:

“Do not speak the title until the cross has taught you its meaning.”

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IV. Who Recognizes the Servant Messiah - and When?

The bitter irony in Mark's estimation is that "those who “should have” understood Jesus' divine anointing often did not... but those who “should not” have understood it, did.

1) The unnamed woman who anoints Jesus

Mark’s narrative presents an unnamed woman's act as anointing “for burial.” Whether she fully understands or not, Mark places her action as a truth-bearing sign: Jesus is anointed not toward pomp but toward death. This is messiahship reframed as offering.

2) The tearing of the temple veil

In the transcript, the torn curtain signifies a shift: access to God is no longer mediated through the old sacrificial separation. Mark’s theological claim is not merely “something dramatic happened.” It is: Jesus’ death itself constitutes a new openness - God’s nearness arriving through the servant’s suffering - and making a hidden, feared, God available to all.

3) The centurion’s confession (the climactic human recognition)

Mark’s most startling recognition comes from a Roman executioner: “Truly this man was the Son of God.” Whatever one makes historically of that detail, literarily it functions as Mark’s culminating reversal: the servant Messiah is recognized at the moment of death, and by the least expected witness. Mark is teaching that crucifixion is not the disproof of messiahship but the disclosure of its deepest form.

This is central to “Servant Messiah”: Jesus is most himself - most revealed - as he gives himself away epitomized in his last dinner with his disciples of broken bread and poured out drink offering (cf. Leviticus Passover mean 23, 26).

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V. Servant Messiah: Two Readings Held Together

Mark’s Servant Messiah lends itself to a dual frame without collapsing into relativism.

A. The confessional (Christian) reading

In Christian terms, Mark offers a theology of redemption in narrative form: the Messiah’s suffering is not accidental, not merely political tragedy, but the chosen path of divine solidarity and deliverance. The servant Messiah “ransom” language (Mark 10:45) becomes a claim about reality: love saves not by domination, but by self-gift that transforms the world’s moral physics.

B. The historical-philosophical (non-confessional) reading

Even without affirming resurrection or divinity, Mark can be read as a profound critique of status, violence, and power. The “servant Messiah” becomes a counter-myth to imperial ideology: true greatness is not the ability to crush enemies but the capacity to bear cost for others.

Regarding this form of teaching, Mark is offering an ethic and an anthropology:

Humans default to greatness-as-rank; Jesus embodies greatness-as-service; communities are judged by which definition they enthrone.

Either way, Mark’s gospel attacks the same illusion: that "the highest good is secured by supremacy rather than by sacrificial fidelity."

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Conclusion: The Messiah Rewritten as Servant, and the Servant Revealed as King

Mark’s portrait of Jesus is not simply “a Messiah who suffers.” It is more radical: that suffering is the ULTIMATE messianic signature.

The disciples’ incomprehension is not a side plot; it is the dramatic representation of how hard it is to accept a kingdom that arrives through service.

The “secret” is not mere concealment; it is protection against misnaming.

And the final recognition at the cross is Mark’s thesis stated in narrative form: the servant Messiah is revealed where the world expects only defeat.

If Mark is right, then discipleship is not admiration plus morality. It is participation in a new definition of reality’s power: the power to heal by giving, to lead by serving, and to become truly great by carrying another’s burden.

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Right and Left

They asked for thrones -
for right-hand light,
and left-hand honor,
for seats that did not bleed.

He answered with a basin,
with water poured like service,
with a towel’s quiet revolution -
and a road that narrowed into wood.

In Mark’s strange kingdom
the crown is not seized -
it is endured,

it holds pain.

The right and left
are not cushions in a palace,
but witnesses to self-giving,
where love refuses to retaliate
and does not abandon or turn away.

O Servant Messiah -
teach our austere hearts
the grammar of your glory:

  that power is not what wins,

  but what gives;
  that greatness is not what rises,
  but what carries;
  and that the door to God
  opens -
    not by the sword,
    but by the torn veil
    of a life poured out.

R.E. Slater
January 24, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Primary texts

• The Gospel According to Mark (esp. 8:27–10:45; 14–16)

• Isaiah 52:13–53:12; Psalm 22 (as later Christian interpretive touchpoints, with attention to historical context)

Historical-critical and Mark studies

• D. Edmond Hiebert, Mark. A Portrait of the Servant.

• Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia)

• Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8 and Mark 8–16 (Anchor Yale Bible)

• Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark (Black’s NT Commentaries)

• Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus

• John J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: Messianism in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls

• N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (useful for a robust “messiahship” frame, even when debated)

Matthew’s Mosaic Motifs

Titian's "Transfiguration," c.1560, San Salvador

Matthew’s Mosaic Motifs

by R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Jesus as the New Moses in the Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus not simply as a moral teacher, but as the culmination and fulfillment of Israel’s sacred history (otherwise expressed as “the continuity and fulfillment of the Old Testament Covenant”).

One of the most profound thematic motifs in Matthew is his presentation of Jesus as the 'New Moses.' This typological parallel runs through the structure, content, and symbolism of the Gospel, creating a powerful narrative bridge between the Old and New Testaments.

Just as Moses delivered Israel from Egypt and mediated the covenant at Mount Sinai, Jesus inaugurates a new covenant and delivers a sermon on a mountain—hence the title 'Sermon on the Mount'—which echoes and reinterprets the giving of the Torah. In Matthew 5–7, Jesus teaches with divine authority ('But I say to you...'), positioning himself not as a mere interpreter of the Law but as one who fulfills and transcends it (Matt 5:17).

Matthew’s Gospel is also structured around five major teaching discourses (Matt 5–7; 10; 13; 18; 24–25), which many scholars interpret as a deliberate parallel to the *five books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy). This literary structure further reinforces the Mosaic framework, suggesting that Jesus offers a new 'Torah' for the people of God. The infancy narrative (Matt 2) includes the flight to Egypt, Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, and the call out of Egypt (Matt 2:15)—all recalling the early life of Moses. Moreover, both Moses and Jesus fast for forty days, and both perform miracles that establish divine legitimacy.

This Mosaic typology emphasizes Jesus as the authoritative revealer of God's will, but in a more intimate and incarnational way than Moses. Whereas Moses ascended a mountain to receive the Law, Jesus ascends the mountain to give the Law. In Matthew’s theological imagination, Jesus is not just a prophet like Moses—he is the Incarnate embodiment of divine wisdom, the one through whom God's ultimate will is expressed. This typology sets the stage for understanding the Sermon on the Mount not only as a set of ethical teachings but as the charter of the Kingdom of Heaven, echoing and surpassing Sinai in scope and significance.

In summary, Jesus fulfills the Law of Moses; is a type of Mosaic figure in leadership and authority; delivers His people Israel from their bondage of sin as Atoning Sacrifice; inaugurates and establishes a New Covenant that undergirds / grounds Israel’s former (old) covenant with God; is transfigured in parallel to Moses’ transfiguration on Mt. Sinai; is God’s New Discipler / Prophet to His people; and comes as One who will write God’s love upon the living hearts of mortal men rather than on the cold, stony tablets of Moses.

Thus and thus, Jesus is the New Moses who highlights the continuity between the Old and New Testamental eras marked by the Old Covenant of Moses and the New Covenant in Jesus each emphasizing the fulfillment that Jesus has brought to the prophecies and promises of God in securing not only a new heart, soul, or work but ultimately a new way of living out God’s love to family, friends, neighbors, stranger, foreigner, alien, and enemy.

 

The Five Books of Moses

1 - *Bereishit “In the beginning” (Genesis): The creation of the world and the early history of the Jewish nation, including the stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, and Joseph. 

2 - Shemot “names” (Exodus): The slavery in Egypt, the Exodus, the Giving of the Torah, and the building of the Tabernacle.

3 - Vayikra “And He Called” (Leviticus): Deals with the Temple sacrifices, kosher, and other aspects of Jewish ritual life.

4 - Bamidbar “In the wilderness / desert” (Numbers): Many events that happened to the Israelites on their way to the promised land, including G‑d counting the people, the Spies debacle, the Korach uprising.

5 - Devarim “Words or Things”(Deuteronomy): Nearing the end of his 40 years of leadership, Moses speaks to the people, preparing them for life in the Promised Land.

 

Typological Comparison: Moses and Jesus

The following table compares major events in the life of Moses with those in the Gospel of Matthew that reflect Jesus as the 'New Moses'.

Moses (OT)	Jesus (Matthew)
Pharaoh orders infant deaths	Herod orders infant deaths (Matt 2)
Moses escapes death as infant	Jesus escapes to Egypt (Matt 2)
Leads Israel out of Egypt	Returns from Egypt (Matt 2:15)
Receives Law on Mount Sinai	Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5)
Fasts 40 days on mountain	Fasts 40 days in wilderness (Matt 4)
Gives covenant to Israel	Inaugurates Kingdom ethics (Matt 5–7)

Visual Timeline and Mosaic Typology
Below is a visual timeline of key events in Matthew's Gospel that reflect Mosaic themes:

Conclusion

The Gospel of Matthew intricately weaves the motif of Jesus as the 'New Moses,' presenting him as the fulfillment of Israel’s sacred history. This typological parallel is evident in the structure, content, and symbolism of the Gospel, creating a powerful narrative bridge between the Old and New Testaments. Jesus, like Moses, delivers a new covenant and teaches with divine authority, positioning himself as the embodiment of divine wisdom and the ultimate revealer of God's will.

The comparison between Matthew’s 'Sermon on the Mount' and Luke’s 'Sermon on the Plain' highlights the differences in location, tone, theological framing, and intended audience. While Matthew’s sermon emphasizes spiritual blessings and the fulfillment of the Torah, Luke’s sermon focuses on social and economic blessings, with a universal tone and social focus.

The visual timeline and typological comparison further reinforce the Mosaic themes, illustrating key events in the life of Moses and their parallels in the Gospel of Matthew. The insights from Church Fathers on the Sermon on the Mount provide additional theological depth, emphasizing the foundational virtues, spiritual fullness, and ethical teachings of Jesus.

Overall, Matthew’s Gospel presents Jesus as the authoritative revealer of God's will, surpassing Moses in scope and significance, and offering a new 'Torah' for the people of God.

Recommended: Authored Works by Steve Thomason

Illustration by Steve Thomason

Author & Illustrator Steve Thomason

Illustration by Steve Thomason

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The people suffered under two oppressive systems. On the one hand they lived under the shadow of the Mighty Roman Eagle and the "Good News" of peace on Earth through the military power of the lord and savior, Caesar. On the other hand they suffered the judgment and condemnation of the religious elite that believed Jehovah's grace was only large enough for law abiding Jews. The radical teacher from Nazareth, named Jesus, came to tear down both of these destructive systems and offer an alternative way of being. He offered a new kind of kingdom where love, mercy, and forgiveness was the path to true life. In this study you will follow Jesus' life story as it is recorded in the four gospels of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four Gospels have been combined to create one continuous story. The study is divided into 15 Sessions with 5 lessons each. On your own you will read the text, answer the study questions, and chew on the 'food for thought'. There is also a "just for kids" section to involve the whole family. Ideally you will gather with others in a small group or house church to discuss your findings and encourage each other to follow the teachings of Jesus.

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The Gospel of Matthew tells the story of Jesus. 

Jesus was a Jewish teacher who was not afraid to speak truth to power, challenge social boundaries, and show unconditional love to all people, regardless of status. Jesus' life, teaching, death, and resurrection are both the fulfillment of what the Hebrew prophets foretold and the promise of God's coming Kingdom.

This graphic novel version of the Gospel of Matthew invites you to enter Jesus' story as one of the crowd who listens to his teaching, watches what he does, and stands amazed.

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The Gospel of Mark tells the story of Jesus.

This rabbi from Galilee steps onto the public scene and declares, "The Kingdom of God has come near! Repent and believe the Good News!" He then backs up his words by casting out demons, healing the sick, and confronting corruption in the religious establishment.

This graphic novel style depiction of the Gospel of Mark invites you to watch, listen, and make up your own mind about this teacher and healer from Nazareth.

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Read through the Gospel of Luke as a graphic Novel in 24 full-color pages. The Gospel of Luke tells the story of Jesus from the perspective of a defender of the poor, the weak, and the outcast. It begins with Jesus' humble birth in a stable and ends with his death on a cross and his resurrection from the dead.

The Gospel of Luke tells the story of Good News on the Way. One unifying theme is travel. Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for an Imperial census. Jesus and his disciples travel across the Galilean countryside proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Jesus travels to Jerusalem and offers teachings about the Kingdom of God on the Way. The story ends with the resurrected Jesus walking alongside two disciples on the way to Emmaus and giving a summary of the Good News.

Luke also contains unique stories, not found in the other Gospels. Jesus is born in a stable and laid in a manger while the angels appear to shepherds in the field. We meet Jesus as a twleve-year-old boy debating with the teachers in the Temple. Jesus offers parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.

Jesus is a poor traveling teacher who exalts the lowly and brings down the self-inflated. He bucks against his cultural norms and highlights the importance of women, children, foreigners and outcasts. No one is outside of God's love, and all who are lost will be found.

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The Acts of the Apostles is the continuing story of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus leaves his disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit so that they can carry on the work of the Kingdom for him. Read and observe as this first generation of Jesus' followers wrestle with how to present his message across cultural boundaries.

This study was originally written in the spring of 2005 for a network of house churches called Hart Haus. Each week the members of the community would commit to spend 5 days studying the designated passage of scripture and then share what they learned with the group when they gathered in the various homes on Sunday.

Originally, this was designed to be a 12-week study, with 60 daily lessons. You may choose to follow the fast-paced, 12-week study, or you may choose to slow down and spread it out over a longer period of time. To facilitate a more flexible format, this version is structured around Sessions, and Lessons rather than Weeks and Days. Feel free to use whatever method fits best with your group's needs.

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Jesus' teachings turned the world upside down. He told people to love each other, no matter who they were. That sounds good on the surface, but it can be extremely challenging to live out in everyday life. From the very first moment of its existence, the church struggled with this basic principle. People who had been enemies for generations were now asked to love each other. Jews loving Gentiles? Men treating women with respect? Owners honoring workers? Rich people equal with the poor? Emperial citizens sharing with barbarians? You've got to be kidding. Sound familiar? After 19 centuries we still struggle with racial, gender, religious, and class issues. That's where Paul's letters can be helpful. Born a Roman citizen, trained under the best Jewish Rabbi, and schooled in Greek culture, Paul learned to become "all things to all men." His mission was to bridge the gap between cultures and show people how to follow Jesus' teachings in everyday life. True, he lived in a different time, and his specific solutions might not fit exactly in our culture, but the spirit behind Paul's instructions ring true in our world. This 16-week Bible Study will help you eavesdrop on conversations between Paul and the people that he loved and led, so you can glean valuable lessons for how to follow Jesus' teachings today.

The Chosen: Seasons 1-2 + Review

Christian America's Must-See TV Show

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/06/the-chosen-jesus-tv-show/619306/

Take it from a Christian and a critic: "The Chosen" is as well made and entertaining as many network dramas. But its relative invisibility to secular audiences is no surprise.

by Chris DeVille

Vidangel Studios

JUNE 27, 2021

Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET on June 28, 2021.

Have you heard about the hit Jesus TV show? The one that launched with a more than $10 million crowdfunding drive? And that streams for free from its own app, where the view counter has surpassed 194 million as of this writing? And that is honestly much better than I expected?

By the standards of independent media, The Chosen is a success. On Easter Sunday, 750,000 people tuned in to live-stream the Season 2 premiere; for comparison, the first episode of HBO’s Mare of Easttown attracted 1 million viewers that same month. Yet The Chosen—which presents the life of Jesus Christ and his disciples as a multi-season drama with imaginative character backstories and interpersonal conflicts—has been a largely underground phenomenon. Until its appearance on NBC’s Peacock earlier this year, The Chosen wasn’t on a major cable network or TV streaming service. Most mainstream publications have not reviewed it, though scattered reports mention its crowdfunding drives (in sum, the largest ever for a media project). You could pay close attention to the television industry and not know The Chosen exists. That’s because the show’s success so far has arrived not in spite of its insularity, but because of it.

Even many Christians are skeptical of faith-based entertainment. The Chosen’s showrunner, Dallas Jenkins, when I spoke with him recently, compared the people who spread the word about his show to the story of Christ’s disciple Philip telling his friend Nathanael that the messiah is from the backwater town of Nazareth. (“Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael famously replied.) So can a biblical series made by a production company from the founders of VidAngel—a service that allowed viewers to filter out nudity, profanity, and graphic violence from TV and movies, then was sold after a multimillion-dollar copyright-infringement lawsuit—actually be worth watching?

Take it from a critic and a Christian with an aversion to Christian entertainment: The show is good. I’d stop short of calling The Chosen a prestige drama, but it looks and feels downright secular. Despite a wonky accent here and there, the acting is as strong as you’d see on a mainstream network series such as Friday Night Lights or This Is Us. A tracking shot lasting more than 13 minutes opened one recent episode—a typical technique for a filmmaker to flex their skills. The storytelling even inspired me to comply with the show’s promotional hashtag and (ugh) #BingeJesus.

The Chosen has caught on with Christians in part because of scarcity. Faith-based streaming services such as PureFlix overflow with solemn dramatizations of Bible stories, though finding one with much depth or entertainment value is rare. Meanwhile, subversive Hollywood takes such as Noah or The Last Temptation of Christ turn off Christians who prize the authority of scripture. The more straightforward 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ was by far the highest-grossing Christian film of all time, and the last one to make a dent in secular pop culture. Yet it was hyper-focused on the last few hours of Jesus’s life, and its fixation on the gory details of his crucifixion was no one’s idea of fun.

The Chosen’s Jonathan Roumie plays Jesus as someone you’d actually like to hang out with, projecting divine gravity accented with easygoing warmth. He cracks jokes; he dances at parties. “What The Chosen has done well is give us kind of a robust portrait of a highly relatable Jesus that moves beyond some of the holier-than-thou, untouchable, unapproachable portraits of Jesus in the past,” says Terence Berry, the COO of the Wedgwood Circle, an investment group that finances faith-based media. (A Wedgwood member backed Silence—Martin Scorsese’s sparse and serious 2016 movie starring Andrew Garfield, Adam Driver, and Liam Neeson as 17th-century Jesuit missionaries.)

Rather than merely reciting Jesus’s greatest hits, Jenkins and his writers linger with characters in their daily lives—marital and professional conflicts, financial struggles, campfire gatherings. When the audience sees climactic moments from the Gospels, such as Jesus’s miraculous healing of a leper, the events register as disruptions of the status quo.

Although The Chosen stays faithful to the broad trajectory of the Christian Bible, it also creates some speculative backstories. Scripture mentions Jesus exorcising a demon from Mary Magdalene as almost a passing detail; The Chosen centers it in a tale that explains her subsequent devotion to Christ. Jews who collected taxes for Rome were considered traitors, so the show’s writers depict Matthew the tax collector as on the autism spectrum, reasoning that a social outcast might gravitate toward a profitable but thankless job. The account of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding might be well known, but in the show, the miracle also saves the bride’s working-class parents from embarrassing the groom’s wealthy father.

The goal, Jenkins told me, was to come up with plausible scenarios that still jibe with the holy book. “We’re not trying to contradict the Bible,” he said. “We’re just trying to build a show around the Bible and tell stories that we think are compelling.” As a viewer who grew up attending church and has made studying scripture a central part of my adult life, I’ve found this approach consistently rewarding. Watching The Chosen is no substitute for reading the Bible—a disclaimer at the start of Season 1 even says “viewers are encouraged to read the Gospel.” But by putting another layer of human perspective between its viewers and its source material, The Chosen performs some of the functions of a good Bible teacher, providing cultural context for ancient events and probing viewers to empathize with the characters.

Some viewers are less enthusiastic. “Every day, I’m told that I’m blaspheming or that I’m a heretic or that I’m violating the Bible,” Jenkins said. But the show’s success suggests that there’s a market for faith-based content that takes creative liberties while maintaining a reverence for scripture. Christianity’s foundational claims naturally center on Jesus: Was he just a singularly wise man or the son of God? What did he accomplish by dying on the cross? Did he actually rise from the dead? Christians who take a literal view of the Bible’s events surely appreciate that The Chosen aligns with their beliefs on these questions. The Chosen does not offer natural explanations for Christ’s miracles, present him as a misunderstood martyr, or imply that he was gay or married. Although the show is still seasons away from the crucifixion, Jesus is already hinting that he is on Earth for a greater purpose—an allusion to his future death as a sacrifice for human sin. As long as Jenkins maintains orthodoxy on key points such as these, the show’s fan base seems likely to give him leeway to color around the margins of his Bible.

The Chosen, whose first season aired in 2019, is now raising money for its third season of a planned seven. Its popularity with a preexisting Christian audience is assured. But it hasn’t appeared to connect with many of the nonreligious. A tension between outreach and insularity has long persisted within the faith-based entertainment industry. Typically, biblical stories don’t permeate the secular mainstream without a star such as Charlton Heston or Mel Gibson attached, and modern American culture has never been less Christian than it is now. Yet Christian musical artists of all genres have been selling out arenas for decades, including Amy Grant, Lecrae, and NEEDTOBREATHE. Theaters see a steady flow of Christian films both confrontational (God’s Not Dead) and inspirational (Heaven Is for Real). Left Behind, the rapture-themed book series co-created by Jenkins’s father, Jerry, sold more than 80 million copies. The religious-media ecosystem encompasses cartoons, video games, and talk shows. Historically, it is also largely self-contained. “There was a creation of an entire subculture that produced its own versions of things and its own stations, and really was talking to itself,” says Michael Wear, who ran faith outreach for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and worked as a consultant for TV projects such as The Bible. “And now I think this next generation of Christian communicators [is] trying to break out of that.”

Jenkins doesn’t seem that concerned about whether non-Christians see his series. Besides Season 1 of The Chosen getting added to Peacock this spring, the show already streams on YouTube and Facebook, making it more and more accessible for the nonreligious. But the slew of faith-based cable networks that have begun syndicating the show within the past year—BYUtv, the Trinity Broadcasting Network, UPtv—more accurately reflect its promotional efforts. Jenkins acknowledges that most of the feedback he gets is from the Christians whom the show is heavily marketed to, and specialized trailers are designed to appeal to various denominations. His focus remains making episodes for his dedicated patrons, who are in some cases literally invested, thanks to the equity-crowdfunding provision of the JOBS Act, which allows financial backers to own a stake in the projects they support. The Chosen could pursue a production deal with Netflix, where executives are hungry for target-marketed programming and offer creative freedom, Wear says. Or it could follow the established web-series-to-legacy-cable path of shows such as Broad City and High Maintenance, says Craig Detweiler, the president of the Wedgwood Circle. Yet Jenkins’s hesitation to do this so far is easy to understand: The financial and creative autonomy of a self-funded hit, where all your production costs are paid for up front, is tremendous.

Jenkins can live outside the traditional media landscape by exclusively serving his existing fans—just like the writers and live-streamers on platforms such as Substack and Patreon do. Berry, from the Wedgwood Circle, points out that The Wingfeather Saga, a series of youth fantasy novels by the Christian musician Andrew Peterson, is now being adapted into a cartoon TV series after a $5 million equity-crowdfunding drive through The Chosen’s production company, Angel Studios. As much as he’s eager to see whether The Chosen can cross over to secular viewers, he’s equally if not more curious about whether its crowdfunded success can be repeated by other faith-based programs.

What’s happened with The Chosen represents what Mark Sayers, the senior leader of Red Church in Melbourne and a co-host of the Christian podcast This Cultural Moment, says is a shift toward a more “networked culture.” Today, a show doesn’t have to reach Breaking Bad levels of ubiquity to make an impact; it simply has to reach specific communities through personal connections. The Chosen will expand its footprint not by reaching secular audiences, but by finding Christians in every city with reliable internet. “People in Australia are watching,” Sayers says. “There’s huge Christian markets who speak English in places like Nigeria and beyond.”

This might sound counterintuitive: Evangelicalism is theoretically premised on spreading the “good news” about Jesus to as many nonbelievers as possible. Sayers thinks that The Chosen could be effective for starting spiritual conversations with skeptical friends, and I’m sure that some Christians have used the show that way. Still, for the most part, the series seems to be finding its fans among the converted. A secular audience might not have heard of The Chosen, simply because it was never who the show was trying to speak to. If The Chosen represents the next phase of Christian television, that future might include crisp production and nuanced storytelling. But it also seems familiarly destined to remain lodged within one of popular media’s oldest echo chambers.

Chris DeVille is a journalist based in Ohio.

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The Chosen Season One: Episodes 1 & 2

Mar 30, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 3 & 4

Mar 31, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 5 & 6

Apr 1, 2021

The Chosen Season One: Episodes 7 & 8

Apr 2, 2021

The Chosen Global Live Event: Season Two Premiere

Apr 4, 2021

The Chosen Global Live Event: Season Two, Episode 2 and 3

Apr 13, 2021

The Chosen Season 2 Episode 4

Jul 16, 2021

With apologies either search on YouTube, go to "The Chosen" Cable Channel

or search on NBC "Peacock" Network for the remaining episodes of Season 2

and any future episodes to come. This is a free production with no fees. - re slater