The Gospel of John ~ New Movie Project Brings the Scripture to Life

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Over the past few years, there has been a plethora of movies made by Christians.  Some have definitely had Christians in mind for their audience while others have tried to reach out to a broader audience.  Occasionally, a movie which tries to recreate a familiar story from the Bible will be criticized for not strictly adhering to Scripture.  So, I was quite curious to see what The Gospel of John from the Lumo Project would be like and eagerly accepted the change to watch in their screening room to do this review.

FOUR GOSPELS. FOUR FILMS. ONE JESUS STORY. FOR EVERYONE.

A ground breaking, multi-language biblical film resource transforming the way we discover, study and engage with the life of Jesus through the four New Testament Gospels.

The Lumo Project is a ground breaking, multi-language biblical film resource transforming the way we discover, study and engage with the life of Jesus through the four New Testament Gospels: redefining the standard of visual Biblical media. The Lumo Project presents four films – one for each Gospel account – that will revolutionize the way we all experience the story of Jesus and the world of First Century Palestine in which he lived.

About The Gospel of John Movie

The Gospel of John takes the story of Jesus from John’s Gospel with its own unique characteristics. For John, Jesus is the Word of God made human. John is clear that that when encounter Jesus, we encounter God.  The Gospel writer points to the miracles (the ‘Signs’) and teachings as evidence of Jesus’ special relationship as the divine Son of God.

This full-length feature film about the life of Jesus takes the actual Gospel text as its script, word for word, unedited. Five years in the making, this epic production has been critically acclaimed by leading religious scholars as a unique and highly authentic telling of the Jesus story. Narrated by leading British actor David Harewood (‘Homeland’, ‘Blood Diamond’, ‘Merchant of Venice’) it is based on the latest theological, historical and archaeological research. With specially constructed sets and the extraordinarily authentic villages and countryside of rural Morocco, it immerses the viewer in the world of first century Palestine.

Our Thoughts on The Gospel of John Movie

When I had quickly read through the description, I wasn’t sure of what to expect.  My best way to describe this film is that you will have the entire Scripture from the Gospel of John read aloud while watching video which relates what is being read.  There is NO question of the producers or script writers cutting out something important or using too much creative license in their interpretation.  With this film, you can pull out your Bible (either KJV or NIV depending upon the version you are watching) and follow right along as it is completely unedited.

While I can admit that this is NOT going to be a film watched strictly for entertainment purposes, the cinematography is wonderfully done.  The filming locations were well chosen to help you see the Gospel come to life.  They used the very latest historical research to recreate Palestine of the First Century as authentically as possible and it shows in the final product.  It also means that you won’t find a westernized portrayal of Jesus or a cast of ‘beautiful’ people who all seem to be the antithesis of what the disciples must have looked like.

As it wasn’t fully ‘acted out’ like some more recent film based on Scripture, my older boys elected to not stay in the room while I watched the advance screening copy online.  However, my youngest son (age 5) was fascinated and wanted to watch the entire film (all 2 1/2 hours of it) with me.  So, we broke it up over 2 days.  After a while, not having the actors delivering dialog no longer seemed strange to us and we could be drawn into the Gospel to experience the Word in a way we had not before.

Some parts of the Gospel he recognized….

And, others he did not….

But, the film really resonated with him and had him talking a lot about Jesus afterwards.

Overall, I see this as a great way to help individuals get a visualization of the Gospels.  I am looking forward to see how they approach the other Gospels and how long each film will be.

Preview The Gospel of John

What do you think about a full multimedia experience like this for the Gospels?