A Former Prime Video Policy Head on Faith, Film and The Chosen

Key takeaways

• Fairness is the issue. Jimmy says the problem he saw at Prime Video was hypocrisy in how content about different groups was treated.
• Faith content followed demand. He describes Prime Video's faith pillar as a business decision that also gave him a front-row seat to something he cared about.
• Creative license has limits. Both men are comfortable with imagined details where the Bible is silent, and unwilling to change the gospel or its key moments.
• A show is not Scripture. Watching can spark interest in the Bible, but it cannot replace reading it.
• Peace guided the decision. Jimmy turned down large tech offers because he did not have peace about them.
• Do your part. Competency and prayer belong together, and Jimmy and Pastor Adam Mesa both point to David and a stone at a tomb to show it.

From three law firms to Prime Video policy

Pastor Adam Mesa introduces his guest as an old friend who has just joined the church staff and leads one of its campuses. Jimmy has a juris doctorate and once owned a law firm with three sites in California. He then rose through Amazon to become head of global policy for Prime Video.

In practice, Jimmy explains, his team wrote the content descriptors viewers see when a show begins, such as flashing lights, violence or nudity. They also wrote the rules for what the service would block. He describes about thirty-one policies covering a library of roughly one and a half million titles. The United States has little regulation here, he says, while places like the UK, Germany and Australia are heavily regulated, so the work had to hold up around the world.

Writing policy as a Christian

Mesa asks how Jimmy handled a industry with a long reputation for hostility toward Christians. Jimmy says it was not easy. Much of the work came down to interpretation, and he rewrote certain policies he thought leaned unfairly.

His concern was consistency. He gives the example of a documentary attacking churches that he was not willing to block, since it was people's opinion. He asked why a Christian documentary raising concerns about something should be treated differently. The line he drew was dehumanizing or denigrating a group of people, and he points to the belief that everyone is made in the image of God.

He says he thought often of Jesus' instruction to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

“Behold, I send you out as sheep among wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

(Matthew 10:16, WEB)

You cannot put on a Christian hat for certain meetings, Jimmy says. His faith had to govern his ethics from the inside, and that meant being fair in how he did the job.

Why a faith pillar appeared at Prime Video

Jimmy describes the move toward faith content as a business shift that made sense commercially. Prime Video built what he calls an entire faith pillar. The Chosen was being courted by every major service, he says, and it landed at Prime Video, followed by The House of David, made with The Wonder Project.

He saw the impact at home. His kids told him they were better Christians because of The Chosen. In his words, it spoke their language, and since they are watchers more than readers, seeing the stories made them human. He names the show's humor and the way Matthew appears to be on the autism spectrum, a tax collector who is good with numbers. Mesa adds the animated series The Chosen Adventures for children.

Jimmy also sees something deeper than ratings. The more people have, from information to AI, the more he thinks they notice an emptiness and look for meaning and purpose.

Where creative license stops

The two spend the longest stretch on a question many viewers raise: what happens when a show adds things the Bible does not say? Jimmy is direct. As he puts it, "if you take only what's written in the Bible and you make a show, it'll be, like, eleven minutes." His own test is whether an addition violates or contradicts Scripture.

He recalls the feedback when the first episode of House of David showed a spear cutting David during the run toward Goliath. It worked cinematically, he says, and Scripture never says David was not hurt. He also describes the meetings held to think through why Saul seems to ask who David is after the battle. Mesa says Jimmy walked him through it as a kind of reintroduction: someone you knew by his family has now done something big, and you want to know who he really is. Jimmy adds that the writers and scholars he and Mesa met are solid believers who know the Bible. John Erwin, who wrote House of David, gets particular praise.

Mesa gives his own examples. He loves the scenes of Jesus playing with children and the disciples unable to sleep because Jesus is snoring, since they humanize Him. He is less comfortable when a show seems to be passing along a message through a Bible character, as when Mary Magdalene relapses in The Chosen. Still, he calls that a creative difference, since it does not change the gospel or the end of her story. He would not tell anyone to skip the show because "they changed the Bible."

For Mesa, the line sits at theology. If a film showed a Roman guard breaking Jesus' leg, he says, that would contradict both Scripture and the significance of a bone not being broken. Jimmy's example runs the other way: a Gethsemane scene where Joseph appears to comfort Jesus. Some viewers were upset, but Jimmy reads it as showing the weight of Jesus' anguish, a thought given physical form, and says it takes nothing away.

Both note that the Bible was never written as a script. Jimmy says that people with different ideas of Mary, or of what looks right, will always push back, and that "you're never going to make everybody happy." Mesa points out that the same people who complain about biblical shows will sometimes clap at the end of a secular film. Whatever your opinion, he says, he is glad the biblical version is there.

A supplement, not the Bible itself

Mesa offers a caution. If a friend says that in the Bible Mary relapsed, and the source turns out to be The Chosen, the two have been confused. One is for connection and enjoyment, Mesa says, and the other is God's Word.

The two have heard that the show has sent people to Scripture. They talk about studies showing more Bible reading after The Chosen. One of them recalls hearing from the Bible app YouVersion about a large rise in downloads and reading, tied by that team to the series, though he admits he does not have the exact figures. Both treat the show as a supplement. If you are going to be entertained anyway, they say, it helps to watch something that supports what you are studying.

Saying yes to ministry

Mesa then asks about Jimmy's next step. When he left Prime, Jimmy interviewed with major companies and received offers, including from OpenAI and Roblox. The one he was most likely to take was TikTok. He and his wife, Deanna, prayed, and he told Mesa, "I don't have the peace to feel like this is my next step at this stage of my life, my career."

Jimmy is clear that money is not a bad thing. He says he has had it, and it did not solve his problems and sometimes intensified them. He also says not everyone is called to full-time ministry. Believers belong in places like Amazon, TikTok and Roblox, he says, because "God needs witnesses everywhere."

Do your part, then trust God with the rest

The last stretch turns practical. On interviews, Jimmy advises being yourself and knowing your audience. He says to expect that rehearsed answers fall apart under a curveball, and that competency carries the day. On resumes, he urges specific wins in place of vague words, and saying "I" instead of "we." Mesa adds that if you do not build competency, a great dream will not matter, and he urges reading widely. He reads leadership and organizational books alongside theology, and says "all wisdom that's true, it comes from God, whether it's in church or outside of church."

Both men tie this to faith. Mesa tells of his father, who had stage four cancer, changed his diet, and was healed. His father gives God the credit and says you should do everything you can so that God can do what only He can. Jimmy points to Lazarus: Jesus was about to raise a man from the dead and still told the people to move the stone.

Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”

(John 11:39, WEB)

They finish with David. He fought off lions and bears in the field and learned to use his sling, and when he faced Goliath he gave the credit to the Lord.

David said, “The LORD, who delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go! The LORD will be with you.”

(1 Samuel 17:37, WEB)

Jimmy adds that favor with people is something to ask God for, since many candidates are competent and the one who is liked gets the role.

What this means for you

Whether you work in media or somewhere else, the conversation offers a few questions to take with you. Where do you have influence over how others are treated, and are you being fair? When a story from the Bible is retold, can you enjoy it while still going back to the text itself? And if you are waiting on God for an opening, what work could you be doing in the field right now?