God's Goodness for the Chosen -Amanda Jenkins

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Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to the Strang Report.

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You know, I get to interview a lot of interesting people and today I have as my guest Amanda

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Jenkins and we're going to talk about the chosen.

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Everybody knows about the chosen.

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It is, you know, it kind of came out of nowhere a few years ago and now it's one of the most

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watched TV shows ever and they have a lot of materials that go with the chosen and there's

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a new interactive Bible study.

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I'm going through this myself and I get to talk to the author, Amanda Jenkins, who does

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all of the resource materials for the chosen and I'm so happy to meet you and to interview

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you and I want you to tell your father-in-law, Jerry Jenkins, who I've known in the publishing

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industry for like forever.

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Tell him I said hello.

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And so let me start by just asking you why did you write this?

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Well, we do Bible studies with every season.

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We do a devotional and we do a Bible study with every season.

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This one in particular we did because we were struggling, my co-writer and I, we were struggling

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separately, but with the same really this concept of suffering was on our hearts.

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And so we really, the operating title for this Bible study, the whole time we were writing

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it was really more the suffering for the chosen, which is not the best selling title.

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I don't know a lot of people who can't wait to like get into suffering.

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And so the title became God's goodness for the chosen, not just because suffering is

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not a great title, but also because what God was showing us in our own suffering was that

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when he's in suffering with us, his goodness and the things of God really begin to eclipse

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that suffering, not remove it per se, but to eclipse it.

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And so that's how this one emerged.

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And it really falls right in line with the themes of season four of the show.

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Well, I want you to do a little more of a deep dive and why did you call it God's goodness

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for the chosen when it's on suffering?

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Because until someone gets into the manuscript, they're not going to really understand the

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connection.

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Yeah, well, we looked at the passage of 1 Peter that we were so intrigued by Peter himself

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and how the disciples, the early Christians, they suffered more than really most of us

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ever will.

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It didn't end well for most of them.

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Most of them, 10 out of 12, I think, were murdered.

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And so we became really intrigued with this idea how they, and specifically Peter, went

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from being fearful and confused and scattering at Jesus's crucifixion to becoming kind of

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these bedrock preachers of the early church.

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And so we took that passage of 1 Peter and we just studied it verse by verse.

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And what we found is that the good things of God that are born out of our suffering really

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do end up outweighing our suffering.

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And again, like I said, that's where we were.

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We were struggling.

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And so it's hard to write about other things when you're so fixated and you kind of can't

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see through your suffering.

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And that's where we were.

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So that's where God met us.

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We know nowadays it seems like things in the culture and in the world are so bad.

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There's a lot of persecution of Christians and those of us who grew up in America where

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we have religious freedom kind of grew up in a bubble.

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You know, and now we're seeing some of our religious freedoms taken away and thankfully

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it doesn't affect all of us, but it's much more difficult than it was.

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And so this, and what made me think of that, Amanda, is that the Roman Empire was, had

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to be 100 times worse than whatever we're facing now.

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I mean, they fed Christians to lions.

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They killed Christians and dipped their bodies in wax and lit them to be candles.

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And you know, one of the things, I'm reading it now, and one of the things that helped

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me understand was like even when Jesus was at Cessria, Philippi, to realize that that

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was a center of paganism.

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It's where the Jordan River starts in a mountain.

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It's where there's a cave that they call the gates of hell.

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Well suddenly that scripture about the gates of hell, not prevailing, starts to make sense.

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And to realize that Jesus and his disciples were right there by the temple for Pan and

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some of the other pagan gods in a way that the, the scripture doesn't seem to play that

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up as much.

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I mean, we know that Jesus was going through Cessria, Philippi, when he asked his disciples,

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who do you say that I am?

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Right in the middle of where you are, right?

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Right in the middle of the mass where you are.

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And I wonder if it was because the principles weren't so specific to that time.

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I think sometimes we think the time we're living in is the worst time.

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And then we do a little history and we realize probably not, but also even the worst things

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of our time are under the sovereignty of, of the Lord and the things that he said then

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are the same things that are true for us now.

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So some of that out of space, out of time is very helpful as we're now in the 21st century

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dealing with really strange new things and suffering in ways I would say even our kids

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are suffering in new ways.

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I think Satan is very inventive and yet there's nothing new under the sun in the sense that

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Jesus's words are as applicable to us today.

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You're absolutely right.

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In fact, when I have an interview, I always look through the book.

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I look to see what stands out to me.

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I was so intrigued with this, I actually started reading it.

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And this morning I actually underlined the sentence.

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I didn't really intend to mention it, but I mean, I just want to prove to my viewers

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that I read it.

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It says, because endurance produces character and character produces hope.

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And then there's these, it's so well done.

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There's these little call outs on the side.

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It is just so creative with the circle.

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Look at this, a whole quote on a page.

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It's what in our business we call the skip and jump reader.

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You can just, you know, even if you don't read the manuscript, if you know you read

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a normal manuscript, there's page after page after page of type.

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This you go through and it's whatever jumps out at you and you read it.

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Now, what does that mean?

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How does it fit in?

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And you went to stop and read the manuscript.

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So my tip of my hat to you and your publisher, David C. Cook, who's an excellent publisher,

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I've known them of course for years because I've been in the business for years.

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But did you come up with all this creativity or did the design department, how, how, how

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far were you trying to do when you laid it out in such a creative way?

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Well, we really worked together.

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David C. Cook is such a good partner for us.

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And then we've got design guys on their side and on our side.

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But the content really kind of spoke for itself in the sense of we're literally talking about

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how God's goodness is able to come into line with our suffering in such a way that it becomes

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bigger than.

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So we really just wanted to throughout the book, every new verse, you see that eclipse

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coming farther and farther, you know, across that sun shape.

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And so it really just lent itself to almost a very literal translation of what we were

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talking about.

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And I noticed you also had dialogue.

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It looks like it's from the movie.

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Like for example, you had dialogue with Mary Magdalene at the perfumer buying the expensive

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perfume.

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And while that story is not literally in the Bible, you know, it's it kind of refers to

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it was is that dialogue in season four, which I have not seen yet.

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Yeah.

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So every one of our Bible studies, we we talk one of our guiding principles with our studies

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is we say our studies are not a supplement to the show.

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The show is a supplement to the study because we're actually studying the Bible.

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We're not studying the show.

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The show is great.

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We love the show, but the show isn't the Bible.

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And so we're studying the Bible, but we use script script excerpts in all of our Bible

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studies.

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And so as we're talking about whatever we're talking about in lesson one, two, three, we

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include we enter into the lesson with some script excerpts and we leave it with some

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script excerpts.

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So we do get a little flavor of the show in the study.

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Well, and they do go together.

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And of course, as people have discovered the chosen, what at least my experience, both

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at my home and people I've known, they almost binge watch it.

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Is that the right term?

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We watch one Jesus.

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We we we DVR a couple of episodes and watch them right in a row.

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I know we usually do that around Easter.

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I know that this one is not available on your app yet before the podcast is over.

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I want people to I want you to tell people how to connect with you and connect with the

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book and also what's happening with the chosen.

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But I have several questions I want to ask you.

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How does this study encourage people to see beyond their immediate struggles to the goodness

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that awaits to them on the other side?

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Yeah, we don't shy away from the hard things.

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I think I think a real common theme of the script writers and my husband as the creator

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of the show.

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And then also as we're writing, we we don't shy away from the hard questions of life.

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Why we're not being healed when we're asking for it.

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Why we're not getting financial release relief when God is promised to provide.

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Why why do why do we have to wait to see even hear God's voice or experiencing him.

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Those things we're really trying to deal with very honestly.

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And so the best thing I knew to do we're actually coming through a season of real suffering

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because of my daughter's health, a chronic illness that we can't we just can't get our

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arms around.

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And so I was dealing with this kid who whose faith I was concerned with because what she

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was dealing with was so enormous.

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And shaking my own fist at the heavens as I wasn't seeing him engage in our suffering

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in the way I wanted him to.

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And so because I had this kid I was still having to disciple her because of course I

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believe this stuff is actually true.

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I just wasn't feeling it the way I wanted to feel it.

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I was discipling her which made me go back into scripture and back into scripture and

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back into scripture and and when you do that.

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God doesn't necessarily emerge the way you envision that you want him to.

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But with every verse of this passage of 1 Peter we really were seeing the promises of

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God and the character of God.

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And it just was so preaching to our hearts it's now and our chapters are interesting

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they're not cause and effect in the way that we normally think so.

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So one of the chapters is called our questions are met with resolve as you're actually questioning

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God and you're not getting the answers that you want.

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He gives you actually something different he gives you himself and his promises and his

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character and those qualities that end up this planting these deep seeds of faith in

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your heart that allow you the resolve to wait on answers.

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And so we really we really dove into that piece of scripture and asked the hard questions

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of God that we were asking behind closed doors.

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Well that's such a touching story and it's so authentic that you would share that.

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Why is the author of this and actually you're a co-author because you have a theologian

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who worked with you.

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And I guess I can kind of assume you wanted him to verify that everything or how did he

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fit into all this before I asked the next question.

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He fits it in such a fun way.

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Doug Huffman is not only one of the most brilliant Bible scholars I've I've ever known.

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He was also my Bible professor in college.

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Dallas and I went to a Bible college and this was our professor and we became friends

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with him and his wife.

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And so when we went on this journey with the show we asked Doug to come on board and check

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every script because the show is steeped in scripture and it's biblically based.

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But you know unless a lot of entertainment up until this point has just taken verse by

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verse and so you you lift right off of the Bible page and then they went to Philippi

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and they did this and God said this.

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It doesn't make for great TV.

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So this was steeped in those biblical stories but then there is this historical narrative

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that the guys wrote.

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And so it was really important for us to make sure while we weren't lifting everything from

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scripture that what we were putting in the show was biblically plausible.

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And for that you've got to have the scholars say yeah they could have said this.

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This is reasonable to think that this conversation filled in the blank between this miracle and

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this miracle.

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And so having him on board was really important and we have a whole panel of scholars.

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But then we needed to we wanted to continue pointing people to scripture in between the

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seasons.

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And so I was already writing and teaching Bible studies and so it made a lot of sense

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for me to take over this extra content aspect of our company.

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But I didn't want to do it without Doug because I really didn't want anything that we did

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to be wrong.

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And so Doug is my partner.

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He's brilliant.

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He's my long time friend.

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I love him and his wife and so we have a really unique special bond.

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You know having him is very important because you're trying to appeal to people who maybe

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don't know the Bible don't go to church just want to be entertained maybe think about those

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times in a different way.

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But you introduce things that aren't in the scripture.

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One of them that sticks out of my mind is the scene.

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It was like almost a whole episode about Jesus and the children.

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Of course the scripture talks about Jesus bidding the little children to come unto him.

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But this had him interacting with them in just a very special way.

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Where you say oh it could have been like that.

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I think I understand Jesus character better.

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Well on the other side from the unbelievers you got the legalist in the church.

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The boy if you if you what's the expression slice a hair too thin or something or if you

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get it wrong at all they're just going to be all over your case.

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Yes right.

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Yeah.

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And so I just admire so much what you've done.

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Oh thank you.

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They're on our case whether we get it wrong or not.

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Some people someone's always on our case which is really it's really fine and I actually

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welcome it because I think it keeps us really honest you know and just doing our part in

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our due diligence on the creative end of things.

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But yeah that episode that you're talking about has been one of the most well received

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by Christians and non-Christians alike by all age groups by children up to people you

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know elderly people on their deathbed this to special needs people.

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I mean that episode we didn't know it was going to kind of take on a life of its own

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and I think the reason is because that verse that Jesus welcomed children is important

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and special.

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But like what would that look like you know we didn't get every word recorded in scripture

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but he was welcoming them and Jesus was the guy invited to parties and Jesus was friends

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with people and hung out with people and leaned back and reclined at the table and spent time

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and so when creative folks start imagining what welcoming the little children actually

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looked like it does change the way you read scripture it brings kind of the black and

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white the black and white of the page into color you're kind of able to go oh my gosh

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yes of course this is how he would have looked at them or this is how he would have said

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that or this is how he would have smiled or the silly noise he would have made.

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It's been a really it's been a faith booster for us too just to get to imagine and go deeper

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as we meditate on the actual scripture and most people say it pushed them back to scripture

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they opened up their Bible for the first time or in a long time and that's really the heart

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behind that.

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You know in your book you talk about hope and promise and you remind the reader that

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the earth is not our home for believers how should the hope of heaven impact the way that

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we feel about our circumstances especially suffering.

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Well I think for me you are what your gaze is fixed on I mean you you really do become

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caught up in what your focus is on and so the more I was forced to do this study and

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I did do this study as we were writing it I was studying this this is not stuff I knew

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before I think God keeps us from preaching from my place to be honest so we're going

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through it and I'm meeting to see God in my suffering and I'm asking the hard questions

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that I'm sitting down at the computer and I'm like okay I don't know what to write you're

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going to have to show me from your word what we're writing about now.

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When you do that and it it it comes to life alongside the show it truly changes the way

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that you experience the actual circumstances because now my eyes are on this more eternal

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thing now my eyes are actually lifted a little bit over the mire and it's so much more tolerable

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when you know that whether here or in heaven this is truly temporary but that only happens

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if you're really focusing on that for long enough to have an impact your heart and your

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mind right that's the kind of the key of focusing on on eternal things.

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So as we wrap up this short podcast you've already shared with us some an example very

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touching example about your daughter and her illness but what ways has God shown you his

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goodness through all this and maybe some other examples.

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I would say I'm I've learned that he's he grieves with grievers his presence ultimately when

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we did begin to see it it changes everything and he he grieves with those who grieve and

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so I think it's changed the way that I respond to people in grief but I think too it introduced

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me to the man of sorrows in a way that I just had not known him before Jesus is called the

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man of sorrows and and until you are really sorrowful that isn't as meaningful but to

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know that there's nothing we go through that he doesn't understand from a visceral place

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of an experience whether it's betrayal or fear or physical pain whatever that suffering

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is he's actually been there in it in a voluntary capacity like he did it for our sake and so

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it just changed the way that I see him almost in a way that I the compassion he has for

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us the empathy he has for us I actually started to have for him it's a new level of intimacy

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that you have with the Lord when you when you understand him better when you get to

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know him better and what he's been through so those two primary things I think are my

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biggest takeaways.

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Well I know a lot of people are going to want to read this book so talk to me other than

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the obvious how can people get it I know it's available online and also just tell me what's

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coming up with the chosen.

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Yeah you can get any of our stuff on the chosengifts.com that's our website Dallas always seems

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it I refuse he's got a little jingle I'm not doing it for you but it's www.thechosengifts.com

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for Amazon it's really easy to get and for the show we are a lot of people who follow

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the show know that we're in the kind of this limbo stage of releasing season four where

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it was in theaters for quite a while it's been in churches and in prisons which is where

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we feel really good about it has yet to release on the app although we're about four to seven

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weeks away just as we deal with some legal issues so you can pray for us in that regard

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this would be incredibly coveted I would say but yeah we we we are plowing ahead as Dallas

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has gone right now in Utah filming season five so our goal is to get through seven seasons

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to tell this story and and after that we're going to take a nap.

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That's funny as we wrap up the podcast I'd like for you to pray for the people who are

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watching and listening we have no way of knowing what people are going through but every life

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involves some suffering even if it's just a loss of a loved one or just different difficulties

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why don't you pray for them pray that the Holy Spirit lead them and guide them and also

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to use your book in a exceeding abundantly more than we could ask or think so would you

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lead us in prayer and then we'll close the podcast that way happy to Lord you you really

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are good and sometimes it's it's hard to see it and so I pray for the people listening

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as I have prayed for myself and my kid so many times would you just enable people to

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see you as they're seeking you would you be found by them as your word promises thank

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you for the suffering that you endured thank you that you understand thank you for your

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compassion and for your faithfulness to us and for your constant presence and for your

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and for your kindness toward us when we accuse you of not being present word would you just

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remain and would you make yourself known and would you comfort hearts and for whatever

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this book can help Lord we pray that it would it's all we got we have our testimonies of

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who you are Lord you do the work so thank you that you include us in any small way we

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pray these things in Jesus name amen amen and thank you Amanda for fitting this into

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your busy schedule be sure to tell your father a Jerry that I said hello thank you to my

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viewers and listeners for tuning into the Strang report today be sure to get this book be

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sure to follow what's happening with the chosen and if you haven't subscribed to my channel

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yet I ask I invite you to do so and hit the little bell so you know when we're live every

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Tuesday and Thursday at 4 p.m. Eastern time thank you for watching until next time