The Chosen’s fourth season is underway with an incremental theatrical release. So despite affirming homosexuality on their set and in their promotional material, The Chosen nevertheless remains a pervasive force in Christianity, as The Shack was many years ago.
Our series reviews thus far have highlighted The Chosen’s seeker-friendly approach to adapting the Bible. In this approach, there have been numerous casual contradictions with Scripture along with getting figures fundamentally wrong like Matthew, Nicodemus, and other things. Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the series, also announced he was not going to depict the Transfiguration.
But now The Chosen is advertising some horrendous theology that appears to come from Jonathan Roumie’s Jesus character.
The Bible clearly teaches that God hardens and softens people’s hearts, even comparing people to clay in the hands of a potter.
Here are a few verses that point out a few verses from the Bible that show God’s sovereignty over human hearts to both harden and soften them.
- Exodus 4:21: “And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.”
This verse shows that God can harden the hearts of individuals, as He did with Pharaoh, to fulfill His divine plan. One has to go out of their way to not read how God’s plan from the beginning was to harden Pharoah’s heart so that He would be glorified even more.
- Romans 9:18: “Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.”
Here, the apostle Paul demonstrates that God has the power to both show mercy and harden hearts as He sees fit. Romans 8:28 through Romans 9 is a treatise on God’s ability to move people’s hearts.
- 2 Chronicles 36:22-23: “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing: ‘Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord, the God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.'”
This passage demonstrates that God can soften the hearts of individuals, as He did with King Cyrus, to fulfill His divine plan.
- Ezekiel 11:19-20: “And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh: That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
Here, God promises to soften the hearts of His people and give them a new spirit, so that they may follow His laws and be His people.
These verses demonstrate that God is sovereign over human hearts, and He has the power to both harden and soften them as He sees fit to fulfill His divine plan. And this is hardly an exhaustive list that could be compiled to demonstrate God’s sovereignty over the human heart.
This is not the most appealing message for a wide audience, but it is clearly taught in Scripture. The Chosen would much rather depict Jesus as wishy-washy even though Jesus served amid a generation whose hearts were hardened towards him, so much so that the greatest faith that Jesus found was from the centurion.
The Chosen portrays Jesus as teaching bad theology unironically as some sort of banger to promote the show’s theatrical release. This is just the latest issue with an otherwise problematic show.
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