Bible Movies and Dramatic Readings: How Should We Watch Them?

Question 1096.

Bible movies and dramatic readings have exploded in popularity over the last few years, and I get asked about them often enough that I think the question deserves a proper answer rather than a shrug from the pulpit. Series like The Chosen have brought Jesus and the disciples into millions of living rooms in a way no sermon series could, and I want to think honestly about what that achieves and where it can quietly mislead.

I have watched a fair amount of this material myself, partly out of pastoral curiosity and partly because church members keep asking what I make of it. My answer is neither a blanket endorsement nor a suspicious dismissal. It depends entirely on how we watch.

Why Bible Movies Reach People Sermons Do Not

A well made dramatisation can put flesh on a name that has only ever been a name to someone. I have had congregation members tell me they finally felt the weight of Peter’s denial, or understood why the woman at the well was so isolated, after watching it dramatised rather than only reading the verses. Story has always been one of God’s own chosen methods of teaching, and a visual retelling can open a door that straight exposition sometimes cannot.

Bible movies also reach people who would never open a Bible or sit through a sermon. A curious neighbour who would politely decline an invitation to church might watch an episode of a drama about Jesus out of simple interest, and that curiosity has been the beginning of real conversations for more than one person I know.

Where Dramatic Readings Genuinely Serve the Text

A dramatic reading, spoken well, restores something of the oral force Scripture was written to carry, the way the logos, the Greek word for word, carries an emphasis on articulate, structured communication that a wordless visual scene cannot always replicate. Hearing the book of Job performed by different voices for Job, his friends and the whirlwind speech of God can make an argument land that silent reading sometimes flattens. This is simply an extension of what I have said elsewhere about audio Scripture: the ear was the original organ for receiving God’s word, long before private silent reading became normal.

The Danger of Filling in What Scripture Left Out

Every dramatisation must invent dialogue, expressions, backstories and motivations that the text does not supply, because film cannot show a character standing in silence for two chapters. The moment a script gives Judas a sympathetic inner monologue Scripture never records, or has Mary say lines she never said, we have moved from illustrating the text to supplementing it, and a viewer who watches without discernment can walk away remembering the invented scene as though it were inspired.

This is where I want church members to be careful. Deuteronomy 4:2 warns against adding to or subtracting from God’s word, and while a screenwriter is not literally amending Scripture, a viewer who cannot distinguish artistic invention from the text itself has functionally done exactly that in their own memory. I have had to gently correct more than one person who quoted a line from a series as though it were something Jesus actually said in the Gospels.

Bible Movies as Illustration, Not Substitute

I encourage church members to treat Bible movies and dramatic readings the way I would treat a good sermon illustration: useful for opening the imagination, never a replacement for sitting with the actual text. Just as the two travellers on the Emmaus road needed Jesus himself to open the Scriptures to them in Luke 24:27, no film can substitute for that same opening of the text. If a series sends you back to Luke’s Gospel to check what really happened, it has done its job well. If it becomes the primary source someone relies on for what they believe the Bible says, something has gone wrong regardless of how reverent the production felt.

I would also gently caution against films that take significant theological liberties, whether by softening Christ’s exclusive claims, inventing romantic subplots for biblical figures, or portraying miracles in ways that undercut their historicity for the sake of ambiguity. Watch with your Bible open beside you, not shut on the shelf.

What This Means for Family and Small Group Use

I have seen Bible movies used well in family settings and youth groups, watched together and followed immediately by opening the actual chapter and asking what the film added, changed, or left out. Used this way, the drama becomes a doorway into the text rather than a replacement for it, and the follow up conversation is often where the real spiritual growth happens, not the viewing itself.

The Chosen and Similar Productions

I am often asked specifically about The Chosen, and my honest answer is that I have found much of it moving and theologically careful in the main, while still disagreeing with particular creative choices and inventions along the way, as I would with any human production attempting something this ambitious. No dramatisation, however well intentioned, carries the authority of inspired Scripture, and I think the creators themselves would agree with that statement.

I would say the same of older Bible movies, from the sweeping mid century epics to more recent television adaptations. Every generation produces its own attempts to bring the Gospels to the screen, and every generation’s attempts carry the fingerprints of that generation’s assumptions, sometimes helpfully, sometimes not. Watching a Bible movie from decades ago can be a useful exercise precisely because its dated choices are easier to spot than the choices being made in whatever is popular today.

Bible Movies as a Bridge Into Bible Study, Not a Terminus

The most fruitful use of Bible movies I have seen in my own church has been as a starting point for a study series, not an end in itself. A small group that watches an episode together and then spends the following week actually working through the corresponding chapters gets the best of both worlds, the imaginative engagement of the drama and the careful, text grounded study that only slow reading can provide. Bible movies that are treated this way rarely cause the confusion I have described. It is Bible movies watched in isolation, with no return to the text, that tend to blur into a substitute Scripture in someone’s memory over time.

I would encourage any small group leader thinking about using Bible movies to build that return to the text into the plan from the outset, rather than assuming it will happen naturally. Left to itself, the easier and more entertaining medium tends to win, and the actual chapter gets left unopened on the shelf.

Discussing Bible Movies With Children and Sceptical Friends

Bible movies also give parents a natural opening for conversation with children too young for a full study series. Watching together and then simply asking what surprised them, what they think was invented, and what they want to check in the actual text can turn a passive viewing into an active one, and it teaches children from an early age to hold dramatised content with appropriate discernment rather than uncritical acceptance, the same discernment I write about in handling woke interpretations of Scripture.

I have found Bible movies useful too in conversations with sceptical friends who would never open a Bible but will watch a well made drama out of curiosity. The conversation that follows, comparing what the film showed with what the actual Gospel text says, has opened doors that a direct invitation to church never would have. Used this way, Bible movies become an apologetic tool as much as a devotional one, provided the conversation always circles back to the primary source.

So, now what?

So watch if you want to, and let a good production stir your affections for Christ and send you back to the Gospels with fresh eyes. But hold the dramatisation loosely and the text tightly. Scripture alone is breathed out by God. Everything else, however moving, is a human attempt to help us see it, and human attempts, even good ones, need to be watched with discernment rather than received as though the camera were an inspired author.

If a film has ever moved you closer to the real Jesus of the Gospels, that is a mercy worth thanking God for. Just make sure it is the real Jesus of the text you end up loving, not only the actor’s face on your screen.

I would rather see a congregation full of people who watch Bible movies thoughtfully, Bible open on their lap and questions ready for the next small group, than a congregation that either avoids every dramatisation out of suspicion or absorbs every one uncritically as though the screenplay carried the same weight as the inspired text. Wise, discerning enjoyment is available to us, and I think God is glad when a good story about his Son moves us nearer to Scripture rather than further from it.

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Deuteronomy 4:2 (ESV)