Author Amanda Jenkins Explores Why God Allows Suffering in 'The Chosen' Season 4 Devotional
Amanda Jenkins has had a front row seat for The Chosen’s remarkable journey from a church’s Christmas video to a worldwide phenomenon in a few short years. As the wife of show creator/director Dallas Jenkins, Amanda has not only been along for the ride on this unexpected adventure, but also has served as a key contributor.
Amanda is the author and lead creator of The Chosen’s additional content. This includes all written materials associated with the show including the various Bible studies that correspond with each episode of the series. Her latest literary work, God’s Goodness for The Chosen (co-authored with New Testament scholar Dr. Douglas Huffman), is an eight-lesson Bible study for individuals or groups that follows each episode of Season 4.
What a great way to prepare for the quickly approaching debut of Season 5 on March 27th, by using this study as a refresher and primer for what lies ahead.
The study thematically touches on many practical yet critically important subjects such as suffering and teaches readers how to re-frame their hardships through the lens of God’s goodness for their lives.
I recently sat down with Amanda to discuss her thoughts on why The Chosen has become a worldwide phenomenon, how it has affected her family, and shares one thing about Jesus that she never knew before.
We have seen many movies depicting the life of Jesus over the years, some good and others not so good. Why do you think this particular program has caught and become sort of a worldwide phenomenon?
I think it's because it's a multi-season (program) and they had the opportunity to kind of let stories unfold rather than jumping from miracle to miracle, which is what we've seen so many other shows do in the past. It doesn't really allow you to experience them in the same way that we humans normally experience things. I think this longer, multi-season show is allowing us to get to know the characters like real people and not just like people (we see) on stained glass windows. So, they're kind of being brought down from that and made to be more real and more accessible. Because of this, you relate to it in a new way.
What has been your most meaningful experience while working on this show?
It's hard to pinpoint just one, but I would say the reach of the show has been beyond what we expected or planned for. We really wanted to do a high quality television show, with the demographic being adults. And what's happened is children, old people, and even people from the special needs community have gotten involved. So, there's no culture or age group that hasn't embraced it. And to me, it's just been watching the Lord do a thing because that's not a thing. You really do have to be targeted in your intentions and in your markets when you're making entertainment. And it's crossed every boundary. I think seeing people from demographics we were not expecting is so perpetually moving to me.
How has your life changed since The Chosen came to be? Is life different or have you worked hard to maintain normalcy in your household?
Yes to both. Life is wildly different, but Dallas and I are totally committed to having a normal family too. We really draw a lot of boundaries inside of our own home. We have older kids now, so that makes it easier too. We can have them be a part of things. Our oldest son actually works on the set. Our kids visit. They know the cast and crew. And so it's very much a family thing, but it is important to me to maintain that sense of family. The busyness is constant. This is a round the clock, year round thing that we do. People always say, make sure you guys are resting. But we are pretty sure we won't rest until it's wrapped as in all seven seasons. And that's okay. I think God's equipped us for that and it's come at the right time in our family as well to make it work.
Let’s dig into the book. A key theme is suffering. That is a hard concept for people to get their head around. How does one find blessing through suffering from your perspective?
Well, I don't think it's from our right answers. I think it sounds like a right answer to say there is blessing and suffering. I was not experiencing a lot of blessing in watching my child suffer. And what I found was once I was really quite emptied of myself, as in I can't even offer a chipper spirit. I can't even come to the Lord in the morning with any sense of hope or optimism anymore. I was really quite exhausted. That's when the Lord started showing me His faithfulness, His loving kindness in the face of my ugliness, in the face of my lack of faith, to be honest. In the face of anger, I think we often feel like we have to pray pretty prayers. Like we have to come to the Lord and present our heartache in a good way. And I have been so stripped of the ability to do that. But then to see that the Lord is like, ‘Yeah, I already knew that. I already knew you were there.’ And to have Him meet us there and to have to see time and again how He's met the followers of Jesus in those places at those times. This is not only an encouragement, but it's also really the inspiration to move forward. We studied a passage from 1 Peter, and no one suffered more than those guys (the disciples). No one could claim a greater suffering than Peter. And to see the resolve that the Lord created in his heart. He was weak and silly, but what the Lord did through their relationship and their time together (is amazing). That's what I'm seeing in my own life. I'm seeing God do things and God change things in my heart. And the blessing rolls out of what He's doing, not not what I'm choosing to find.
In addition to suffering, what sorts of other topics do you explore in the book? How is the book structured?
There are eight lessons. Each one coincides thematically with the episodes of the show. We start each lesson with a script excerpt and end it with a script excerpt. You can see the train of thought tying into the scripture that we're studying. And so it really is week by week. I think it is an ideal way to look at it. There's questions all throughout. You can break at any point. What I love about it is that it takes the show and personalizes the scripture and the content that you're watching. And so it's just a really nice way to reflect alongside the show.
Building off of that, to effectively tie in elements from the The Chosen video series what sort of process do you go through to ensure there is connection and synergy between the two?
I'd love to make myself sound smart when I answer that, but there is no way to do that. We read the scripts when they come out. My co-writer is our New Testament scholar, so he's seeing them for multiple reasons. And then we're praying over it. And I'm asking God in prayer, what is it that you have for me? I have to do this first. And what is it that you have for our viewers/readers? It's been really clear each time as to what themes that we're going to focus on. There's the season where we talk about the Sermon on the Mount. We're talking about what it means to be blessed as a follower so that there are natural ties and ways, inroads and off ramps. And these themes really just kind of present themselves organically.
What is one thing about Jesus that you never knew before but learned while working on this Bible study project?
I knew it, but I didn't get it that he's called the Man of Sorrows. And it makes me emotional because I'm realizing there's just nothing that I'm experiencing that He hasn't already experienced, including what is really awful. Things like physical pain, but also betrayal from friends. He had His own frustrations in this season. We're watching Him start to be frustrated with His followers who He's pouring into, loving on, and teaching every day. And they still don't get it. They're so hardheaded. That was hard for Him. I think we're so used to our world and just in our flesh, we're so used to everything being about us. And I think studying suffering first and foremost put me in this place where I was realizing how much He suffered, how resolved He was to suffer for our sake, and how extraordinary that is. His empathy with absolutely everything we experience. I just feel very seen in it, quite frankly. I'm seeing His suffering in a new way, and therefore I'm seeing His response to my suffering in a very new way.
There are a lot of Bible study type books out in the marketplace which address many of the topics you write about. What sets this book apart from all the others?
I think we really work hard to say things in a real way. We don't use any, what we call “Christianese”. There's no inside baseball language. If we were saying it to somebody who has never heard the scripture, we're going to say it in a way that they would understand. And yet we aren't going to shy away from hard things or deep things. There's great stuff on the market. You don't have to do this Bible study to get the Bible. So, whatever you're doing, do it. But I think what we do uniquely at The Chosen is in the show itself, and it's in our Bible studies. We don't shy away from hard topics. We don't shy away from hard questions and we explain things in ways that are very user friendly. Sometimes my editor will come back and say, ‘Hey, that's slang.’ And I'm like, yes. Because that's how normal people talk. And so we try to communicate in a very down to earth and honest way.
After people have had a chance to read and take part in God’s Goodness for The Chosen what would you like readers to take away from that experience? What is your greatest hope for the book?
Our greatest hope for the show or for any book that we make is that people know the Bible a little bit more. We joke about how at the end of the day, even though this is a TV show, we want people in their Bibles. However that happens, that's the number one goal. That's the only thing we really care about.
