Chosen Season 4

 

Tonight was a night off of taekwondo and FCY, so we picked this night to go to the movie theater to see the premiere episodes (1-3) of season four of "The Chosen."  It was a looooong night, but there were a few other people in the theater with us until late, and there was somewhat of a fellowship of Chosen fans there.  Maddie enjoyed it, and I'm not sure about Mom, but I thought episodes one and two were good.*  We had a huge tub of popcorn, because it was half-off, and we had great seats in a huge theater, right there dead center in the back like always.  It was wild finally seeing it in theaters, and it was super late when we got out - the lobby was dark and deserted, and we were just all collectively wandering out in silence.  The ending of that third episode was the cause of that.

Maddie was at Chestatee today, and it was a good day there at the school.  Maddie keeps getting unexpected hugs from students there, and it's really sweet.  Meanwhile at Forensics, she cracked her teacher up with an almost snarky-sounding response to another student - it wasn't meant to be as snarky as it came out, but it was funny nonetheless.  It was a comment about something so big... what is it?  Your forehead.  Maybe she can translate that here.

Meanwhile the preparations continue for quite a bit in the future.  We have about ten apostles cast for Easter, plus the four Roman soldiers.  We're writing for this weekend a little, but I spent a huge portion of the day proofing the new "Exodus" series that I'm super excited about in March.  We'll have to watch "Prince of Egypt" and of course "The Ten Commandments."  But one new thing that we're anxious to get started with is the new Hillsdale course on Exodus.  Beyond that, of course that's where I'm at in the Bible, just getting started really, within the first five chapters or so.  I'm re-reading them to look for little nuggets and things I miss sometimes due to "reading past" something.  You learn a lot going back to re-read things.  Anyway, we're going to do a big series with Exodus, and that should be fun.  We're also getting written the Summer Xtreme messages - I've gotten three done so far, with two to go.  This year we're going to do a five-day Summer Xtreme, so that will be a return to something we haven't seen since 2019, Maddie's last one as a student.  Wow.  Anyway, we're moving forward with that, and hopefully we can get going on a graphic for that.  In the meantime, there's a Parents Night Out this weekend, and a few other upcoming events... like a cruise?  Yeah, that'll be here before you know it.  Mom is packing, and so is Maddie.  We're got door decorations and mental plans of places to go visit, like the "Hero Zone" and the "Aqua Mouse" on board.  We've decided to stay on board the ship in Nassau, and given the recent stories of crime in Nassau, others may be following suit.  But I just love a relaxing day on the boat - hopefully we'll get to see a movie, do the Aqua Mouse, hopefully the Hero Zone, plus possible trivia, ice cream, the pool... lots of stuff to do!

I'm walking towards my heart badge, one of the new badges you can earn on the treadmill in February.  Walking badge first, and then running.  Walking on this one, I've been in Italy, Alaska, Chile, and more - it's been fun.  I'm gearing up for a possible 5K at Castaway Cay.  Will I be able to do it?  Stay tuned!

Tonight we read from our book, although not as much given the lateness of the hour.  Still, we're pressing forward, with less than 100 pages to go.  I think this book will be done before the cruise, which means we'll probably be taking that Kingdom Keepers book with us to Florida.  We'll have that one finished right about the time the next installment comes out.  I keep checking to see if the author will be in the neighborhood, but it doesn't look like he'll be anywhere but at the Magic Kingdom to sign books personally.  We usually get an autographed version of this book, so we're holding out hope.  Anyway, we did read a little of that tonight, and we said our prayers of course.  

* The third episode of "The Chosen" is certainly controversial in how it ended, and pretty much killed my enthusiasm for the series for the time being.  No spoilers here, at least not yet.  But earlier in the series, Jesus asks the question (found in Matthew 9:15):  "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?"  I always assumed the answer was "no," based on the context of that passage (it's about fasting and why aren't the apostles doing that while Jesus is with them).  However, this series has decided that yes, the friends of the bridegroom will mourn while he is with them, and a lot.  This is because the writers wanted to work in the age-old questions of "why do prayers go unanswered" or "why do bad things happen to good people" to this telling of the gospel.  Thus, episode three concludes with a fictitious and shocking scene not from the Bible.  And in the show's script, it's a scene apparently caused by the character of Jesus, who wanted to show us all that he came not to unite, but in fact "to divide us."  And while that may be the gist of what he said in scripture, the fruit of his character's actions in this scene result in immediate catastrophe.  Even more shocking, he stands by and watches events unfold, sad but unable to intervene because of God's will.  None of this is in the Bible.  Yes, it's a television show.  There is a lot of "historical fiction" at play.  But it makes an assumption of how Jesus would have acted and reacted at an emotionally devastating moment, and that presumption has caused a bit of controversy, mainly because many people have associated so much of the gospel stories with the way things are played out in this show.