A quick analysis of that new scene from The Chosen Season 4

Everyone's upset when James and John ask for special status in the group.

Jesus (Jonathan Roumie, centre) is distressed by a feud that erupts when John (George Xanthis) and James (Abe Bueno-Jallad) ask for special status, in The Chosen.

Dallas Jenkins hosted another livestream to promote The Chosen last night, and along the way, he gave us our first glimpse at another scene from Season 4. It’s a very scripture-heavy scene, so I thought it might be fun to break it down a bit. (Yes, I know I still need to finish my recaps of Season 3. I’ll try to do that… “soon”, you might say?)

Where this scene fits into the structure of the series

First, Jenkins said it’s a scene from the fourth episode. (Oh, and note: this scene will be deleted from the livestream fairly soon, so watch it while you can.)

Because this is a seven-season series, and because each season has eight episodes (so far, at least), the fact that this scene is from Season 4 Episode 4 means it takes place at almost the exact mid-point of the entire series. And, hmmm, what was happening at the mid-point in each of the canonical gospels, I wonder?

• Matthew 16 begins at around this point. This is the chapter in which Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus gives him his nickname, and Jesus starts to predict his death and resurrection.

• Mark 9 is about half-over at this point. This is after Peter confesses that Jesus is the Christ, etc., and just before Jesus overhears the disciples arguing on the road about which of them is the greatest.

• Luke 11 is about half-over at this point. The confession, the prediction, and the arguing on the road all took place a few pages earlier, and now Jesus is talking about the sign of Jonah and delivering the six woes, etc.

• John 11 begins at around this point. This is the chapter with the raising of Lazarus. The next chapter marks the beginning of Passion Week, i.e. the seven days leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

The scene that was previewed last night has elements of (or references to) all of the things I mentioned above from Matthew and Mark. So the fact that it lands at almost the exact centre of the series kind of fits, structurally, with those gospels best.

Obviously, that’s not to say that the series as a whole is following the structure of Matthew or Mark. Clearly, it isn’t; the series as a whole is using elements from all four gospels and weaving them into a completely new chronology.

But it’s interesting that this particular part of the story is perhaps being treated as a sort of pivot point or fulcrum in the series, just like it is in those gospels.

The biblical source and theme of this scene

Next, Dallas set up the scene like so:

James and John have just asked Jesus — this is a popular moment from the Bible — if they can sit at his right and left hand in his future kingdom. So he’s been trying to tell them about the— some of the challenges he’s going through. He’s trying to talk to them about the importance of the mission, the importance of servant-mindedness. And here they are thinking about glory in the future, and status in the future. And so they think they’re just asking him a fairly innocent question. He responds in a very— in a way they didn’t expect. So that’s what just took place. They’ve asked a question, and he has walked away, in frustration. And that’s where this scene picks up.

The story he’s referring to is told in Mark 10:35-45. Interestingly, in Matthew 20:20-28, it is the mother of James and John who asks Jesus for this favour.

This jockeying for status among the disciples was already evident in S2E1 (i.e. Season 2 Episode 1), when Simon bristled at taking orders from James and John. And the jockeying never really stopped, either in the gospels or in the series: in Luke’s gospel, the disciples were still arguing over which of them was the greatest at the Last Supper (Luke 22:24), while The Chosen has suggested—also in S2E1—that John was still jockeying for status years after Jesus’ ministry, when he started writing his gospel and calling himself “the disciple Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20).

(We know from the rest of the New Testament that status continued to be an issue in the early Church. Note how, when the church was debating what to do with the Gentile converts and it seemed like some of its leaders might be compromising their principles, Paul made a point of saying that the “high esteem” given to apostles like Peter and John “makes no difference to me”, as per Galatians 2:6, 9.)

Some brief line-by-line comments on this scene

And now, the dialogue from this scene: