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“He has made everything beautiful in its time.   Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart …” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

When I was younger and knew a lot more than I do now, I found God’s choice of format for divine revelation disappointing.   Why use a literary mish-mash of stories, poetry and law codes written by fallible and frequently depraved people?   I had to work hard to understand the Bible and even harder to use it to determine how I should live.   If God had consulted me (and he did not) I would have advised Him to make it easier by dictating a theological treatise, an academic paper, or better, a corporate instruction manual.  

Why does the Bible contain so many stories and so much poetry?   Why do their messages appear open to different interpretations?       Today’s poetry can be cryptic enough, so why does God use a three-thousand-year-old Hebrew poem to tell me how to live today?

Perhaps, because poetry is a lot more than just words.   “In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row,” says more on ANZAC Day than the bare fact that millions tragically died.   Both the poem and the facts are true, but the image of red poppies blowing in an endless field of white crosses is eye-watering, while the propositional statement that millions died may seem abstract and remote.  

Poetry makes magic because somehow the rhyme, rhythm and word-sounds touch our hearts.   They reach deep down into the wellspring of our soul and draw out what is transcendent – love, truth, beauty, goodness, meaning and hope.   Being transcendent, these aren’t material artifacts we can touch, taste, see or hear, yet we value them above all else in life.   We all want to love and be loved.   We seek truth and beauty, and without hope we perish.

By design, these same transcendentals are the attributes of God.   For God IS love, God IS truth, and God IS Goodness.   We desperately long for love, truth and goodness because we’re made in His image.  

Greatham Manor, L’Abri, UK, Ian Reilly 2023

Just as the poppy poem is a portal to knowledge of the eternal dead in Flanders’ fields, all the arts are our portal to understanding the nature of God and the unseen and transcendent worlds He created.   Propositional statements on their own, however true, don’t touch our hearts the way poetry, image and stories do, and it’s our hearts God wants for his own.  

Perhaps the Bible contains stories because story is the most universal art-form, crossing culture, time and place. That “you should love your neighbour as yourself” is propositionally true, and we must believe it.   But when Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, He emotionally engages our hearts, giving that proposition colour and grit.   

We stand there on the hot dusty road to Jericho, seeing a man violently attacked and left for dead.   By telling this story Jesus not only illustrates his message, he engages our emotions by tugging our heartstrings.   It’s a small step from emotional engagement to emotional investment, and God cares most about where we invest our hearts, because our hearts goad us into action.  

Similarly, Peter preaches at Pentecost by quoting poetry from the prophet Joel, making a coherent argument in a way that emotionally connects with his hearers, so they are “cut to the heart.”   When Paul speaks to the Areopagus he persuades them to consider the gospel by quoting poetry from a body of Greek literature that resonates emotionally with his audience.   Instead of merely warning Israel of its impending doom, God instructs Hosea to make his life an installation artwork by marrying a promiscuous woman, and naming his son Jezreel and his daughter No Mercy.

If we preach and teach to stir listeners into action, we should emotionally engage their hearts using stories, poetry, paintings and other art-forms.

There are different interpretations to every story because real life is complex.   Stories have many participants, each with a different perspective, motivation and experience of the same event.     We need to work hard to gain understanding because life is a serious business, and there are no limits to the depth of our knowledge of God.

The Triumph of the Cross, Ian Reilly 2024

Instead of confining His revelation to a theological treatise or corporate manual for life, God gave us a collection of great works of art.   Art that uses poetry and prose to not only communicate propositional truth, but give us vicarious lived experience so we can apply His universal and eternal truth in the context of our present time and place.

Art enriches our Christian perspective by   helping us better appreciate and enjoy both the material and transcendent worlds as an integrated whole, not possible in today’s dominant materialist worldview. By adding depth to our experience of God’s truth, art makes our perception of His created world more real.

Being made in the image of our creator God means artful creativity is in the DNA of our body, soul and spirit.   We worship God using the art-forms of reading stories, singing poetry set to music, praying, and preaching in a building we designed and decorated to be a fitting place to worship God.  

We typically don’t think of a sermon, or serving morning tea at church, or a conversation with a newcomer as artwork.   However, our existence and lives are all God’s creative handiwork, so ALL of our lives are part of his creative purpose.

In Art and the Bible Francis Schaeffer writes: “No work of art is more important than the Christian’s life and every Christian is called to be an artist in this sense…The Christian life is to be a thing of truth and beauty in the midst of a lost and despairing world.”

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pots so that the mended pot is more beautiful than the original.   Kintsugi requires a broken pot and we are broken people.   God is our master potter. No matter how broken our lives might be, God can take our shattered life shards to remake them into something more beautiful, transcending our brokenness, mistakes, sins and failures to build His kingdom.

Raising children, trading with integrity, digging drainage ditches, biscuit-baking, and home-making are all works that we can do as expressions of love, beauty, truth, goodness, meaning, purpose and hope, as much as any painting, poetry or prose.  

Few of us are talented musicians, painters or poets, but what we do in this life matters to God, and we are all called to build His kingdom.   So don’t be afraid to sing though no one listens, write poems no one reads, and paint pictures no one sees.   For God watches, sees and listens, and everything we make “beautiful in its time” in our brief life will glorify God for eternity.

Ian Reilly (www.ianreilly.com.au) is the author of ENCOUNTER – A Journey into Chaos, Culture and Compassion (Ark House Press).   Ian and his wife Heather worship at Donvale Presbyterian Church.