The Church Unleashed

The Bible series as presented by The History Channel is over... it's now "history".  I enjoyed the series very much, enjoyed preaching on it, and enjoyed blogging about it.  It's almost sad to see it come to an end.

This particular episode took us through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, then dealt with the planting and expansion of the church in the compact fashion we have grown accustomed to.  Again in this episode, we saw some "extra-biblical" materials come in; things you won't find in the bible. But I still think the producers did a fine job in communicating biblical truth through the film.

Of particular note; I appreciated the way the religious authorities were portrayed in selecting and coaching the crowd at Jesus' trial before Pilate and the importance of showing the sacrifice of the Passover lambs while Jesus was being crucified.  Questions that arise; did Jesus kiss the cross?  Did his mother Mary help him pick it up?  These were touching moments but not biblical.  The crucifixion itself was handled masterfully, not overly gory but gruesome enough to get us to understand the brutality of the whole thing.  Pilate's comment, "he'll be forgotten in a week", was not biblical, but it summed up the political/religious feeling of the moment.



I was a bit confused by the resurrection scene.  The bible clearly says, "while it was still dark" (John 20:1).  Did the budget not allow for an early morning visit to the tomb.  I cite John's account because John is the only one who mentions only Mary Magdalene as visiting the tomb.  However, John may have been giving us only the pertinent facts and leaving out the others who accompanied Mary in the other Gospels.  Did Mary go alone?  Was the stone rolled away (Luke 24:2) or blasted into pieces?  I could go on but I don't want to take too much away from the fact that I still think they did a good job in summarizing what happened.

Speaking of summary, the establishment and growth of the early church was quite truncated... but again done well enough that we get the point.  Some extra-biblical material pops up again regarding the death of the disciples.  At least the narrator identified this as "church tradition."  Who was the guy they stoned and for what reason?  (I know it was Stephen, but it wasn't clear in the movie.)  I was a bit upset that Caiaphas calls "Saul", "Paul".  I realize the producers didn't want to try to spend time explaining why or how his name change happened.  But for me, the significance of "Saul" getting the new name, "Paul", speaks of two things... symbolically it speaks of his new life in Christ... socially it connects him with the Greeks (Paul being a Greek name) with whom he is called to minister.

Paul makes the greatest proclamation in the entire movie when he says, "Jesus came to me, not in righteous anger or in judgment, but in love." 

And isn't that the point of the entire series?

- Pastor Paul