Biblical Lessons From Bluey

Bluey, an Australian cartoon, is perhaps the biggest animated kids show on television right now. If you have kids, you most likely know of it, as it is probably always playing in the background in your home. If you’re an adult, you might even enjoy Bluey, as it is a wholesome show for all ages. It’s not your typical kid's show with annoying characters and obnoxious music. Bluey is a masterfully crafted show that doesn’t talk down to children. It’s a show filled with important themes, such as being okay with people coming and going throughout your life, not giving up when you feel defeated, turning a boring moment into something memorable, and even something as heavy as getting through a miscarriage. Most of the time, Bluey is learning life lessons from her younger sister, Bingo, but what sort of lessons, as Christians, can we learn from watching Bluey?

“The Truth Will Set You Free”

In the episode Family Meeting (Season 3), Bluey accuses her father, Bandit, of passing gas in her face, though Bandit denies ever doing so. Instead of using the word ‘farted,’ they use the word ‘fluffied.’ It’s a very comical episode, and certainly one children will love, but aside from the childish humor, there’s a moment that directly points toward Scripture.

During the family meeting, Bluey uses her sister, Bingo, to lie and go against her dad by secretly bribing her with a lollipop. After getting caught, Bluey’s mom, Chilli, leans over toward Bluey and says, “Remember, the truth will set you free.”

Though the episode may only be referencing the quote to make the case against lying, Christians recognize it as one of the most popular quotes by Jesus.

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 8:31–32

Jesus wasn’t talking about telling the truth. He wasn’t telling the people, “If you tell the truth, you’ll feel better about yourself.” That’s the worldly answer when this verse is read out of context. If you were to read it in its full context, you would see that Jesus is telling the people that he is the truth. Remember John 14:6 when Jesus says he is ‘the way, the truth, and the life’?

Jesus is telling the people if they live out his word — his commandments — then not only will they be his disciples, but they will be free.

Free from what, though?

In verse 33, it says:

They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”

While our modern culture interprets this verse as a way to tell the truth, the Jewish people during these early biblical days were thinking about personal freedom. They’re thinking, “Well, we’re not slaves to anyone right now. We’re free people, so what is Jesus talking about? How can we be free when we are already free?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. Now the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.

Even though the Jews were free people, they were still slaves to sin. Jesus is telling them that only he can set them free from that sin if they choose to believe and follow him.

In Romans 6:20–23, Paul echoes this statement even further:

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It’s not telling the truth that sets us free, though we may feel a lot better once we do, but it’s Christ who makes us free. He takes away our sins so that we are no longer slaves to sin.

It’s great that Chilli is quoting Jesus, but if she truly understood the meaning behind the quote, it might have left a greater impact on Bluey.

“Alive!”

In the episode Born Yesterday (Season 3), Bandit, Bluey’s father, pretends that he was, well, born yesterday. By pretending to be a creature suddenly thrown into the world, he doesn’t have an idea of what anything is or how the world works. During this playtime, Bandit asks Bluey and Bingo if certain things are alive or not. He asks if a chair is alive. Bluey tells him that it is not. Then, Bandit points to a strawberry and asks the same question. This time, Bluey isn’t too sure of herself.

Eventually, Bandit and his daughters walk under a tree. It is here that Bandit picks up a leaf and begins to deeply stare at it. Though he is pretending to be a newborn, he truly begins to experience the beauty of the world for the first time in his life. As Bandit stares at the leaf, we then get a beautiful moment where we zoom into the leaf to microscopic levels to see the living cells that make up the leaf. To Bandit’s astonishment, he proudly exclaims, “Alive!”.

These days, many people on a certain political side cannot distinguish what is alive and what is a life. They say life begins at a certain point or something needs to have a pulse, brainwaves, consciousness, and experience to be considered alive, but do plants have a consciousness or brain activity? No, but they are living things that grow, develop, and eventually die. Plants are very much alive.

We, as Christians, know that life begins at the moment of creation and we know that God values life in all stages of development, whether it’s a human, an insect, an animal, or a plant. When God created the earth, He said it was all good because everything He created was precious and of value to Him.

This is proven in Jeremiah 1:5 when the author writes that God knew him before he was formed in his mother’s womb. Everything from the seed of a man, the tiny clump of cells in the womb, and the developing fetus are all alive.

“We Made Them”

In Flat Pack (Season 2), the episode tells the story of creation through the lens of evolutionary development. Chilli and Bandit are trying to put together an IKEA-like furniture, but Bandit refuses to look at the instructions. While the parents are busy building their item, Bluey and Bingo take advantage of the materials within the box (cardboard, foam, and bubble wrap). With these items, the two sisters begin to roleplay the many stages of life throughout the eras. The two begin as fish but then move on land as frogs, which eventually evolve into lizards, then dinosaurs, and birds. Eventually, Bluey and Bingo become cavemen who later evolve into modern people.

While the kids are playing, Chilli and Bandit take a break from their construction to pause and look at their children — their creation. Chilli begins to become filled with emotion, looks to Bandit and says, “We made them.”

This episode is certainly going to cause a lot of controversy among Christians, as it focuses on Darwinian evolution, but if we judge the episode too quickly, we just might miss the bigger picture.

While Bluey and Bingo are playing the part of evolution, Chilli and Bandit are playing the part of God, or gods. There’s a part in the episode where Bluey hints at the gods being angry and possibly bossy, but then the very next scene shows the parents embracing each other and fondly looking over their creation (Bluey and Bingo).

There are a couple of things to look at here: the nature of God and God’s creation.

Let’s first examine the latter.

If we were to look at this from a secular worldview, we can just say that the episode is simply centered around anthropological science and myths, but from a Christian worldview, we can look at this episode from the perspective of Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:31

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 2:1–3

Those two verses are clearly illustrated with Chilli and Bandit being the god-like characters.

We have to remember that the Bible is not a science book, so we shouldn’t treat it as such. The Bible tells us about God and His plan for us, so when we discuss the concept of creation, we don’t exactly know what that looked like, but we do know that God was in control of it all.

Secondly, we have to look at the nature of God.

Bluey gestures to Bingo that the gods are angry and bossy from the cave art-like illustration she draws up. Though she doesn’t say it, she expresses with her body language that the gods only want to tell us what to do by creating rules for us to follow, such as not being able to do this or that.

However, the next shot shows Chilli and Bandit (the gods) looking out at Bluey and Bingo with love in their hearts. Though Bluey might have some sort of perception of God, or the gods, that perceived perception is almost instantly proven incorrect.

When people think about God, they often have the same sort of belief about Him. Some believe God is a bully, a tyrant, a dictator, and a narcissist. In fact, Richard Dawkins, the famous biologist and atheist, wrote in his book The God Delusion:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Not sure which God Dawkins is referring to, but that’s definitely not our God. Just like Chilli and Bandit, God watches over us and marvels at His creation. Though we are not perfect, God still shows His love for us. He loves us so much that he gave Himself up to die for us. That certainly doesn’t sound like something a petty, unforgiving control-freak, and megalomaniac would ever do.

“No One Can Walk On Water”

In the episode Shadowlands (Season 1), Bluey and her friends play a game similar to the floor is lava, except the floor is only water. While in the park, the kids must stay within the shadows and reach the other side of the grass without landing in the well-lit areas. Bluey and her friends are jumping from one shadowy area to the next, but then they realize that their final jump to safety is too far to reach. They’ll never make it. Also, the shadow is beginning to move away, so the pups need to think of something quickly before they run out of shade. One of the friends, Coco, suggests an alternative rule.

“Why don’t we make it so we can walk on water?”

Immediately, Bluey says, “No one can walk on water.” However, Bluey’s other friend, Snickers says, “A water boatmen can.” A water boatmen is an insect that can swim on top of water.

Although, in the original script, Joe Brumm (creator of Bluey), admitted that the kids were supposed to make a reference to Jesus.

“So, there’s just a little line in there where they’re pretending all the sunlight is water, and they’re going, ‘But you know we can’t get to the things,’ and they go, ‘Well, maybe we can walk on water.’ And they go, ‘No one can walk on water.’ And I was going to have Snickers say, ‘Jesus can.’ And Bluey just says, ‘Who’s Jesus?’ And then we’d move on.”

The decision to remove the line was made by Disney, as the animation company thought it might be offensive to Christians. However, similar to Brumm’s response, I don’t think many people would find it offensive. In fact, I was sort of hoping one of the dogs would reference Jesus, but at the same time, it would be weird to think of Jesus as a dog. Maybe it was best to leave it out, but for those who are wondering, Brumm, who attended Catholic school as a child, was making a reference to Jesus walking on water, as told in the gospels.

The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.”

John 6:18–21

“It’s Not The Reason to Be Nice to People”

In the episode Verandah Santa (Season 1), Bluey and her family get ready for Christmas by playing a game where each person in the family pretends to be Santa. Bluey believes that Santa only gives gifts to good people, so she goes out of her way to be nice for the sake of getting presents. However, when Bluey’s cousin Socks does something that upsets her, she gets revenge by not leaving her any presents. Chilli and Bandit teach Bluey about forgiveness and that Christmas is “not the reason to be nice to people.”

In Christianity, there are some who believe that doing good deeds will be rewarded by God. This is known as the Prosperity Gospel: Whatever you give, you’ll get back in plenty.

Instead of doing something with a pure heart and intentions, they might do something so that others may see them. They might give food to the poor, but they might look around to see if anyone saw it. Maybe they will only be nice to someone because they think good things will be given back in return.

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”

Matthew 6:5

Paul makes it very clear in Ephesians 2:8 that we are not saved through our good works, but we are saved by grace. We can’t earn our way into heaven. It doesn’t work that way. You just can’t think you can try to be a good person in order to please God. God isn’t looking for good people and bad people. Deep down, we are all bad people in need of saving. Many people will claim to be a good person, but by what standard are they making that claim? Is it just their opinion or are they looking toward the ultimate example of God’s goodness? If they are looking to God’s example of goodness, then they have failed because no one is good. People can do good things, but doing good things won’t get us a special place in heaven, seventy-two virgins, our own planet, or closer to God.

By doing good deeds, we are simply demonstrating the love of God to others. Jesus says in Matthew 25:40:

“Whatever you did for the least of these brothers, you did for me.”

If we are showing Christ-like love to others, there is no need for an earthly reward because our reward is eternal, as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 9:25. Our earthly gifts will perish, but the ultimate prize lasts forever.