Arts & The Bible

Are Sermons Enough to Preach the Whole Counsel of God? (Part 2 of 2)

| May 10, 2016 | Arts & The Bible | 2 comments

Ezekiel valley of the dry bones header

In Part 1 of this two-parter (you can read it here), I talked about how the overwhelming majority of the pages in the Bible are devoted to showing the truth through narrative and poetry, over against telling the truth in expository teaching. There are two questions that arise from this—is it possible that God endorses different kinds of preachers and preaching than what we have become accustomed to in the contemporary church? And if so, what does that mean for the importance of the arts in, for, and from the church?

How Will They Hear Without a Preacher?

What does it mean to preach? Our first thought when we hear “preacher” is of someone behind a pulpit explaining some biblical truth. But is that the only way to preach? Again, going back to the Bible, it becomes clear that the biblical prophets and preachers employed a variety of methods in a variety of venues to deliver God’s message. Some of these methods seem quite unorthodox to the contemporary Christian: marrying a prostitute (Hosea 1:2), preaching naked (Isaiah 20:2), naming children (Isa. 7:3; 8:1–3), building a 450 ft. boat (Gen. 6:13ff; 2 Pet. 2:5), eating bread cooked over dung (Ezek. 4:12f), and various other acts of sacramental symbolism and prophetic theater.

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Are Sermons Enough to Preach the Whole Counsel of God? (Part 1 of 2)

| May 3, 2016 | Arts & The Bible | 0 comments

Preaching header

“Why should I give money to support the arts? Why not give money to preachers or missionaries instead? After all, the most important Gospel work is preaching, isn’t it? As Paul says in Romans 10:14, ‘How will they hear without a preacher? It never says, ‘How will they hear without an artist?’ does it?”

During the Nehemiah Foundation’s nearly decade-long effort to renew the arts within the church, I have regularly heard some version of this objection. At first blush, it seems true and obvious, doesn’t it? If the Word of God is primary and fundamental to the work of the Gospel, then preaching the Word of God and explaining it in sermons must be fundamental and primary to the work of the church. Most people in the church believe that it’s okay to have the arts as an adornment for a Gospel message or as a harmless amusement, but they believe the real bulk of the church’s emphasis and resources should go to spreading Gospel sermons far and wide. They think explaining the Gospel in sermons is the most effective way to evangelize the world and edify the church, and “preaching” is therefore the most important and primary work of God’s people.

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Why the Church Needs More “Ugly” Art

| March 22, 2016 | Arts & The Bible | 2 comments

thorns header

My friend Jimmy used to play guitar for the musical worship team at his church. One Sunday, after the service was over, a man approached Jimmy and said, “I don’t think you should put distortion on your guitar. It’s evil. It’s Satanic.”

Jimmy, being a well-humored and quick-thinking guy, turned the distortion down to 0% and strummed a few chords. “So this is okay? This is not evil?” he asked. The man replied, “Yeah. That sounds good.” Jimmy proceeded to incrementally increase the degree of distortion, play a few notes, and ask again at intervals, “So what about this? Is this evil?”

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We Sin Because We Have Bad Taste

| June 29, 2015 | Arts & The Bible | 0 comments

goat with bad taste

According to one study, 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women look at porn at least once a month. Those numbers aren’t all that different from the statistics of non-Christians. Is it at all strange to you that pornography is so popular? It’s singularly one of the most tacky things on the planet. It’s garish, badly acted, badly shot, badly directed, badly “written,” completely unbelievable, contrived, mindless, and absurd.

How do we normally condemn pornography? By calling it immoral, abusive, socially destructive, and shameful (all of which are certainly true). But shouldn’t it be enough that pornography is mind-numbingly tasteless? Somehow that isn’t enough. Which makes me think sin is very much connected to horribly bad taste. Let me explain.

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Beauty is in the Eye of Which Beholder?

| March 17, 2015 | Arts & The Bible | 0 comments

beauty eye of beholder

This is the fifth installment in the “Whatever” series on a biblical view of the arts, drawn from Philippians 4:8. If you missed the last four articles, you can read them here: Whatever is True, Whatever is Honorable, Whatever is Just, and Whatever is Pure.

Whatever is Lovely

It would be easy to assume that no one needs instruction in what is lovely. Many consider this to be a matter of personal taste without any need for study, discipline, or assistance. This perspective is, however, not biblical. While no particular human aesthetic can claim to have a corner on loveliness, Paul would not have included this phrase in Philippians if loveliness were entirely arbitrary. If anything could be lovely depending only on your taste, what would be the point of directing people to lovely things? We already like what we think is lovely—no instruction or commandment required.

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Has God Really Called You to be an Artist?

| December 8, 2014 | Arts & The Bible | 11 comments

Calling in Your Ear header

Renew the Arts is regularly asked how we decide which Christian artists we support. Our criteria are actually quite inclusive:

  1. You profess Christ as your Savior and your life does not obviously contradict that profession.
  2. You believe you are called by God to be an artist or artisan.
  3. We believe your art is not likely to be served by the current art market.
  4. We believe we are able to provide something to you that you can’t provide yourself (e.g., production assistance, studio space, materials, etc.).

If you meet those four criteria and you want our assistance, we will do everything we can to support you in the way we think will best serve your art, benefit the church at large, and steward our limited resources.

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