Art is not something just to be analyzed, but also to be enjoyed. The late 20th-century philosopher Frederick Buechner said, “Beauty is to the spirit what food is to the flesh.” Art raises our imagination and ennobles what it touches. Think of the great art you’ve seen that communicated so much more than words. Yet many Christians have nervously vacated the arts to secularism.

A Christian artist posed this question: “Is art just another way to bring worldliness and sin in the back door of Christianity? Or is it a gift that God has given that we might create and enjoy His world?” Maybe it’s both. But scripture tilts toward seeing art as a beautiful gift to create and enjoy, with discernment. 

Art was given by the original Artist. God created the heavens and the earth with skill and artistry.  And on the sixth day He completed His magnum opus: us!

Until the creation of mankind, God says, “Let there be.” He is creating by voice. But when God creates man, He says, “Let Us make man in Our image.” He changes gears. He isn’t just speaking; He’s taking up and forming man as an artist, using the medium of clay.

“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” – Genesis 2:7.

We are the high art of God! The highest, because God created us in His own image. We come complete with intellectual, moral, and emotional capacity. And the ability to be abstract, imaginative, and creative.

In Exodus 35, when the Lord dictated the design of the tabernacle, He chose Bezalel and filled him “with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts.”

Read More