The episode has an interesting form, with a story inside a story, as it begins with a flashforward to the moment when Saint John starts working on writing down his Gospel, and notes down the stories of other Apostles and the Virgin Mary. There is also a hint of Matthew's planning to write his Gospel. John does not know how to start the Gospel and then we get back to the "present" that is where the story ended in season one. This is John reminiscing on how he came up with the idea for the first words of his Gospel, which were inspired by a conversation he had with Jesus and the excerpt about the creation of the world Jesus read in the synagogue. The final scene, juxtaposing Jesus' reading of the Old Testament text and older John writing down the Gospel is very poignant.
In the episode itself, there is a bit of a filler and it seems it is focused too much on fictional characters such as Ramah and her father (Ramah's dad is unsure whether to let his daughter follow Jesus, and their farewell is moving in itself, but has little to do with the stories from the Bible). Jesus tells the parable about the lost sheep and then shows the Apostles how it works in reality when He first converts and then heals an ex-robber who got lame during the robbery. The Apostles start to quibble among themselves, with John and James wanting to prepare a schedule and the rest of the team being against it. John and James think they are better and more important than other Apostles and Jesus has to explain their mistakes to them. There is the story how they got the nickname "Sons of Thunder" when they intended to rain fire on some Samaritans opposed to Jesus. The Lord shows them just how wrong this idea was and teaches them to be humble. The story was told from the point of view of John but I wish there was more of a focus on Jesus in this episode, He was almost a side character here. And apart from the parable and the situation with John and James, there were not much of the Biblical stuff. I am afraid that the showrunners will not be able to show all important scenes if they add too much fictional content instead of focusing of bringing the stories from the New Testament to life.
Review by ladysherlockianBlockedParentSpoilers2021-08-15T13:58:04Z
The episode has an interesting form, with a story inside a story, as it begins with a flashforward to the moment when Saint John starts working on writing down his Gospel, and notes down the stories of other Apostles and the Virgin Mary. There is also a hint of Matthew's planning to write his Gospel. John does not know how to start the Gospel and then we get back to the "present" that is where the story ended in season one. This is John reminiscing on how he came up with the idea for the first words of his Gospel, which were inspired by a conversation he had with Jesus and the excerpt about the creation of the world Jesus read in the synagogue. The final scene, juxtaposing Jesus' reading of the Old Testament text and older John writing down the Gospel is very poignant.
In the episode itself, there is a bit of a filler and it seems it is focused too much on fictional characters such as Ramah and her father (Ramah's dad is unsure whether to let his daughter follow Jesus, and their farewell is moving in itself, but has little to do with the stories from the Bible). Jesus tells the parable about the lost sheep and then shows the Apostles how it works in reality when He first converts and then heals an ex-robber who got lame during the robbery. The Apostles start to quibble among themselves, with John and James wanting to prepare a schedule and the rest of the team being against it. John and James think they are better and more important than other Apostles and Jesus has to explain their mistakes to them. There is the story how they got the nickname "Sons of Thunder" when they intended to rain fire on some Samaritans opposed to Jesus. The Lord shows them just how wrong this idea was and teaches them to be humble. The story was told from the point of view of John but I wish there was more of a focus on Jesus in this episode, He was almost a side character here. And apart from the parable and the situation with John and James, there were not much of the Biblical stuff. I am afraid that the showrunners will not be able to show all important scenes if they add too much fictional content instead of focusing of bringing the stories from the New Testament to life.