DVD Review: The Promised Land

That the World May Know: Faith Lessons on the Promised Land: Crossroads of the World Length: 1 hours 50 minutes Publisher: Zondervan First Released: 2005

Source: Rented it from Netflix.

Netflix Description:
Travel to Israel and draw a whole new understanding of the Scriptures. Wet your feet in the Jordan River and feel the power of the life-giving water, and show your trust in the Lord's bounty by offering up first fruits at Jericho. You'll learn all about how you can cleanse the land by confronting evil and use the tools of society to redeem your world for God. This video is the first volume of the "That the World May Know" series.


My Review:
The Promised Land is the first volume of the "That the World May Know" series. If you've never had a chance to travel in Israel and you can rent or borrow the other disks in this series, then I'd highly recommend you do. It has nice footage of the Holy Land so that you can get a feel for what the land looks like now. It helps to bring the Bible alive.

The lessons were filmed like you were a part of a tour group, but with added graphics, pictures, and aerial shots when appropriate. The format was that at each new site the teacher would give us the history related to the site (usually reading from the Bible), describe what the site originally looked like (if it was now in ruins), and give a faith lesson related to "impacting the culture" based on what we learned at that site.

The Promised Land contained very little cultural background information. The teacher mainly read from the Bible about what happened at the spot and gave a faith lesson that often seemed unrelated to the readings or drew the wrong conclusions (in my opinion) about what was read. The faith lessons on this disk seemed very works-based and "clean up your act so God can work" themed. Also, some of the given historical information and dates weren't biblically accurate.

Lesson One: Tel-Gezer - lesson on city gates and high places.

Lesson Two: Jordan River - filmed just below Sea of Galilee. Mainly what happened at Jordan Rover with varied shots of the river.

Lesson Three: Tel-Jericho - lesson on Elisha's spring and the biblical first fruits festival. The teacher stated that Jericho is 7,000 years old and the oldest city in the world, neither of which is biblical.

Lesson Four: Beth-Shemesh - information on Nazirite vows.

Lesson Five: Tel-Azekah & Elah Valley - read about David and Goliath. The teacher said some things which I believe are incorrect.


If you've watched this DVD, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the DVD in the comments.