“One of my teachers thinks The Chosen is bad. What do you think, Dad?”  Something like this was said by one of my children last year.

If you are unaware, my kid was referring to the hit TV series that began in 2019, which is the first ever multi-season TV show about the life of Jesus. I was aware that some people are big fans of it while other people think that it is spiritually harmful.  I am somewhere in the middle of those extremes, but closer to “fan” than thinking that it’s harmful.

It seems to me that one of the big reasons that there are some Christians who oppose the show is that they believe it is a violation of the second commandment – creating an idolatrous depiction of God. In other words, people who would not have been opposed to a multi-season TV show about the Life of Moses or Paul, are against this particular show because it depicts Jesus, whom they believe is God and therefore shouldn’t be imaged in any man-made way.

I do get the concern and will return to some practical outworkings of it toward the end of this article. Additionally, I believe that any Christian who believes The Chosen is a violation of the second commandment shouldn’t watch it. It’s bad to get in the habit of ignoring your conscience.

However, I’d like to briefly make the case for why I do not believe The Chosen is a violation of the second commandment, even if I do have some small reservations about the show from time to time.

WHAT IS THE SECOND COMMANDMENT?
Here is the relevant text of the second of the ten commandments found in Exodus 20:
 

The command is against idolatry. Now, some Christians would suggest (and I agree with them) that the idolatry that is forbidden here is not simply the making of idols to worship false gods. This command would also forbid the making an idol of the true God and worshipping it rather than worshipping Him directly. After all, if you remember the story of the golden calf in Exodus 32, the people didn’t get in trouble for worshipping the calf instead of God; they were punished for worshipping the calf as God. At the time, Aaron had said, “Israel, this is your God who brought you up from the land of Egypt!”

So, I understand the concern that we should not make any images to represent God and worship them. For that reason, I would advise Christians to never worship crucifixes, or paintings of Jesus, or the even the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Having said that, I’m not sure I would go so far to say that the command was meant to condemn every possible depiction of God for every purpose.

WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE SECOND COMMANDMENT?
I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that the phrase that helps us understand the point of the second commandment is the part where it says: “You must not bow down to them or worship them.” It might not be that all imaging was forbidden (in fact images of cherubim were actually commanded for the construction of the tabernacle) but rather imaging for the purpose of worship was forbidden.

You can see this in other passages. For instance, Leviticus 26:1 says not to set up a carved image or a sculpted stone “to bow down to it.” The command doesn’t seem to be against all sculpted stone on all occasions, but rather against sculpted stone for the purpose of worship.

WHAT ABOUT THE CHOSEN?
Yes, The Chosen clearly provides images of Jesus, but the question is, is the point of the show to worship the image depicted on the screen? I would guess that most viewers don’t do that. At least, for me personally, it never crossed my mind to do that when I watched the show. It seems to me that the show allows people to picture what it would have been like for Jesus to have walked this earth and say the things He said, in as close of a way as we can without having lived back then in order to have seen it ourselves.

In other words, God was not against humans seeing the human form of Jesus multiplying bread and fishes; in fact, he allowed 5,000 people to see that in real time. So, is it sinful to reenact that scene now, for people to see, and imagine what the original was like? It seems to me that kind of thing is not what is forbidden in the second commandment.

SO, ARE THERE NO CAUTIONS?
Ah, here’s the rub. It seems that once a pastor says something like The Chosen is not a violation of the second commandment, people take that to mean, “Everything about the show is correct and great.”

First of all, I think Christians should be VERY careful how they depict Jesus, and perhaps should consider doing so sparingly. We have done it a few times at Good News Church:

You may have noticed, we have tried to do this minimally. During the series on Mark, we purposely didn’t show His face, and the Hebrews series also obscures his face because of how small He is in the scene. Those kinds of choices are made because of our concern that we be very careful about the way we depict Jesus.

These concerns would extend all the way to the way Jesus is depicted when a Christian reads a passage containing the words of Jesus (note: I try to never be flippant about the way Jesus said anything when I read the Bible aloud) and would of course extend to the decisions Dallas Jenkins makes when he decides what to show on The Chosen.

There have been episodes of The Chosen that truly impressed me. The Woman at the Well episode and the Walking on Water episode spring to mind as good episodes that I’m glad I watched with my children. 

However, I was sorely disappointed with the episode about the lead up to the Sermon on the Mount. I disliked the way the Marys were helping Him decide what clothes to wear for His big debut. I hated how anachronistically the disciples passed out flyers to invite people to the sermon (that’s not how Matthew 5:1 describes it) and I groaned when they showed the big stage and backdrop as if Jesus were a modern-day megachurch pastor popping out from his greenroom to address his congregation (also not like what Matthew 5:1 says.)

So, here are my cautions: