The Gospel Of John…See It Now on Netflix

A brand new film, The Gospel of John, was released to Netflix December 1, 2014. It is the first in a series of four films presenting the Gospels,   Curious, I sat down with my Bible in hand to watch the 2’ 40” the NIV version, narrated by leading British actor David Harewood.

This Lumo Project film was unlike any I’ve seen before.  Instead of the film’s characters speaking their parts, the narrator read from the book of John, word for word, unedited, and in its entirety.  And instead of Hollywood-style deviations from Scriptural integrity, the scenes were presented tastefully, and true to text.

Bravo! 

Presently, you have three choices for narration.  You can choose from the New International Version (read by David Harewood), the King James Version (read by Brian Cox), and the Reina-Valera 1960 Spanish Language version.  As I understand it, The Lumos Project hopes to eventually offer the films in other languages, as well.

The beautiful scenes were carefully chosen to create authentic looking sets and characters.  It’s kind of like a moving picture-book of the epistle of John.  A very long picture book!  :) 

There were large numbers running at the bottom of the screen.  But they didn’t seem to correlate to chapter and verse (which would have been cool) or even time elapsed.  So I’m unsure why they were there.  Perhaps the numbers only exist on the viewing link I was sent?  If anyone can explain them, I would greatly appreciate it!

In my opinion, the only thing that could have made it better (besides accurate and running scripture tags throughout the film for quick referencing) was if it had been filmed on location in the Holy Land.  Having been there myself, I found myself distracted by scenery that didn’t match the images in my mind.  Still, producers chose well their locations in Morocco to resemble those of first century Palestine.

These films have created a brand new way to bring the words of the Gospel to hearts and minds around the world.  I love the idea and pray that God will use each film to bring people to himself.

I’m looking forward to seeing the book of Luke. I think it will be nice to watch the first couple chapters with my family as a reminder of what Christmas is all about.