Others take just one thought and turn it around and around and around with such skill that they leave you crying, “Encore!”

John Piper does the latter in his short new book, Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully, which looks at the sometimes perplexing question of if and how we should use eloquence to advance the Gospel.

It’s a question that’s long exercised me because, as Piper points out, the Apostle Paul seems to put oratorical gifts in the “worldly” category (e.g. 1 Cor. 1:17; 2:1). Yet, as Piper also proves, all the Apostles, the Prophets, and even Jesus himself, used various verbal and literary techniques in their Gospel communication.

I suppose I’m extra suspicious because some years ago I was greatly blessed through an incredibly eloquent and popular preacher who I later found out had been living a double, even triple, life. Ergo, any effort to be fancy or clever with words must be wrong.

So, how do we reconcile this seeming contradiciton?

Sovereign Grace
Piper does a superb job of explaining that the Bible does not warn against all eloquence or oratory, but only certain kinds, the kind that uses eloquence as an end rather than a means, and the kind that uses eloquence to promote the speaker rather than the Gospel. He then goes on to argue from the Bible and from three talented Christian wordsmiths – George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C.S. Lewis – that we should pour huge effort into developing our word skills for the sake of the Gospel.

Part of Piper’s argument is that only by working hard to describe the beauty of the Gospel will we actually see it. It’s a kind of virtuous circle; the more we strive for beauty in proclaiming the beauty of Christ the more beauty we and others will see in Him. Saying beautifully will help us savor and see beauty.

Don’t for a moment think that Piper is advocating mere acting, or depending upon human talent for sinners to be saved. No, throughout, Piper is at pains to underline the Calvinist doctrine of sovereign and monergistic grace. God is the decisive cause, and yet He uses our poetic effort.

Poetic effort? You mean, I’ve got to write poems?

Do not fear, fellow word-schleppers. When Piper talks about poetic effort, he’s calling us to be more poetic in our proclamation – to learn how to use words better for the glory of God and the good of sinners. We must exert ourselves, with God’s help, “to find striking, penetrating, imaginative, and awakening ways of expressing the excellencies” of Christ.

And this isn’t just for preachers, it’s for anyone who’s interested in improving their witness through words – spoken or written.

Confused
I’ve always been a bit uncertain about this whole question. I work really hard to be clear, simple, and passionate in my preaching. I strive for appropriate illustrations, quotes, and anecdotes to support my points. I pour a lot of time into memorable sermon points and themes.

But then I wonder: “Am I trying to do God’s work for Him? Am I depending on myself rather than Him?” Maybe I should follow the example of a preacher friend of mine in Scotland who tried to be as boring as possible so that when people believed, everyone would know it wasn’t him but God!

It does seem though that God especially uses men who have great natural gifts in speaking and others who have worked really hard to develop their gifts. It appears that God does bless literary and speaking gifts for the advance of His grace.

Clouds Clearing
Piper has totally cleared away my hesitation on this, mainly thought the superb introductory chapter examining the Corinthian passages that seem to condemn “wisdom of words.” I’m now totally convinced that if I do it for the right ends and in the right way, I can safely and helpfully work on becoming a more skillful verbal artist and expect God to bless that effort for His glory, the good of sinners, and the edification of my own soul.

The most common comment I get after sermons is, “That was very clear.” Which is fine; that’s one of my main aims.” But having read this book, I hope to hear more of, “That was very beautiful.” No, I hope to hear, “HE is very beautiful!”

What’s Beauty Worth to You? (HT: Zach Neilsen)
Christine Jeske talks about the need to seek out, value, and enjoy beauty in our daily lives, even in waffle-makers! On the same subject Carl Truman asked Dr. Diane Langberg, a specialist in abuse counseling, “how she manages to maintain a healthy outlook on life when she is faced every day with dealing with ugliness and depravity.  Among other things, she mentioned filling her life with as much beauty as possible, and mentioned Bach in particular.

Losing Privileges
In the face of the rapid “de-Christianizing” of American, R.C. Sproul Jr. challenges the church to maintain her witness and even rejoice in her pariah status: “It will not be long, I suspect, before those who believe marriage is between one man and one woman will have all the cultural respect as a member of the KKK.  Will the church be telling us to soften on this issue, to not talk about it, so accommodate the broader world for the sake of soul-winning? If so, we will have sold our own soul.  Jesus was rather clear — if we were of the world, the world would love its own. But we have been bought with a price (John 15:19). Pray that we don’t sell our birthright of persecution for the pottage of respectability.”

Trends Among Evangelicals Entering Ministry
Three Christian higher education presidents—Michael Lindsay, Albert Mohler, and Phil Ryken—discuss in this new roundtable video what they observe among the rising generation. Meanwhile, President Mez has other ideas for the coalface.

Holy Love Wins: David Wells on the Story of the Bible and the Meaning of Life
David Wells turns from critic to creator, from deconstructor to reconstructor in his capstone book that shows the church a way forward in the post-modern world.

Tweeting as @DailyKeller, Painting as Tim Clark
Another great interview in the TGC vocations series.

Similarly, we do this with labor when we divide headwork from handwork, and then attribute huge value to headwork and little or nothing to handwork. Sometimes we use economic criteria (which job earns the most?), and sometimes we use spiritual criteria (ministry is spiritual, everything else is secular).

Using biblical criteria I want to show why this divide-and devalue assessment of work is wrong, and I also want to demonstrate the beauty and dignity of manual labor.

The Source of Manual Labor
God was the first manual laborer. He created all the materials in the world and worked them into shape. He made Adam from dust, and Eve from a male rib. He made things out of things.

Also, the first job God created was gardening, into which He called His first “employees.” Later, He called Bezalel and gifted him with all the necessary manual skills to build the tabernacle. Indeed, Bezalel is the first person Scripture records as being filled with the Spirit, and this filling was to help him build the Tabernacle (Ex. 31:3). God called and equipped Bezalel, no less than He called Moses.

The Son of God was probably a carpenter for most of His early life, a job to which He was divinely called and for which He was divinely gifted. Matthew Henry said: “Skill in common arts and employments is the gift of God; from him are derived both the faculty and the improvement of the faculty.”

The Range of Manual Labor
We find a variety of God-given gifts at the tabernacle building site: woodworking, stone-cutting, jewel-setting, needle-working, etc.

Do we not see God’s amazing creativity in the vast range of creative gifts He has distributed throughout the world? When we watch a farmer plough his fields, a builder erect a wall, a homemaker arrange and adorn her house, we see the vast range of God’s creative abilities scattered throughout His creation. John Calvin said, “All the arts come from God and are to be respected as divine inventions.”

The Necessity of Manual Labor
Moses was a knowledge worker, but not a manual worker. God gave him the ability to teach and write, but he needed help with practical matters of construction. For God’s purposes to be accomplished, for His character to be revealed through the tabernacle, He also needed those who could work with their hands (which, as Exodus 35:31 makes clear, also involved a lot of headwork).

If God has gifted you, it’s because He has ordained needs for you to meet with your gifts. If He’s given you Bezalel-type gifts, don’t try to be a Moses. And if you have Moses-type gifts, encourage and value the Bezalels. The Church and the world both need all of God’s gifts.

The Beauty of Manual Labor
In the Tabernacle, we see God’s regard and concern for beauty. We see it in the design, the fascinating furniture and ornaments, and the value and variety of the materials. Although a large part of the Tabernacle’s design was about daily practicalities, some of the design choices were simply about beauty.

Let’s image our God by cultivating an appreciation for beauty and by displaying it in our daily lives and callings. Ask: “How can I make this home or yard more beautiful, this factory more beautiful, this product more beautiful? How can I reveal and display the beauty of God in my daily life and calling?” Our beautiful God loves beauty.

The Aim of Manual Labor
The aim of handwork and headwork, is the glory of God. Moses’ preaching and Bezalel’s cutting, nailing, and lifting resulted in God being better known.

But, you may ask, “How do I glorify God in a factory, in a building site, in the kitchen?” We do so by mirroring God through diligence, integrity, honesty, and, above all, by aiming at excellence in all that we do.

That’s why, like Bezalel, we all need the filling of the Holy Spirit in whatever we do. Work is difficult, excellent work is even more difficult, and doing God-glorifying excellent work is most difficult of all. But if we do our God-given work, with God’s help, and for God’s glory, we are worshipping Him in, through, and with our work.

And that’s beautiful!

First published in the November 2012 edition of Tabletalk. Subscribe here for $23 per year. 

Eyes Wide Open

It also leaves me open-mouthed asking, “Why isn’t everyone talking about it? Why isn’t this book all over the Christian blogosphere?”

When I went to its Amazon page, I was stunned to discover only one review! It was a five star review, unsurprisingly. The surprise was only one review. Where are your friends when you need them!?

Marketing or Beauty Failure?
When I see the dozens of reviews and five stars attached to so many other Christian books of far less worth, I’m inclined to think that this is failure of marketing.

Or maybe it reflects a general lack of Christian interest in and passion for beauty in our world. Some Christians are perhaps too “spiritual” to see anything beautiful in the world. Others are possibly too “worldly” to appreciate beauty and see its spiritual dimensions. And the myriads of busy activists don’t want to pause and ponder: “Just give us something practical.”

A Transforming Book
So, how can I encourage you to read this book? Let me put it in one sentence: It will utterly transform the way you view, experience, and interact with the world and the God who made it. Yes, it’s one of the most spiritual, beautiful, and practical books I’ve read in a long time.

It’s good to see a growing number of Christian authors calling Christians to rediscover their biblical calling to be the greatest creators, connoisseurs, and communicators of beauty. But I’d recommend this book to thoughtful non-Christians too as it paints a picture of Gospel-centered Christianity in such a positively beautiful and inspiring light.

Top Ten Truths from the Book

1. God created beauty, is the Beauty behind every beauty, and is the measure of what is truly beautiful.

2. As God created beauty to lead our affections to Him, all created beauty should lead us to give thanks, honor, and worship to Him. The ultimate goal of all beauty is wonder and worship.

3. Nature is God’s self-portrait…God creates beauty so we can know what He is like. God made everything – every atom, every grain of sand, every bird, every water molecule, every person (including you) – as a reflection of His nature.

4. As should be expected of those made in the image of the Creator our passion for creating and the pleasure we experience from human creativity dominates our lives and culture: home décor, landscaping, photography, clothes, woodwork, bird-watching, scrapbooking, sports, mowing straight lines, fit bodies, etc.

5. Jesus is the Beautiful One. His beauty is a tapestry of all that is glorious in God intertwined with humanity’s capability to reflect the image of God.

6. Humanity’s blindness to Jesus’ beauty is spiritually devastating.

7. Until we see the beauty of Christ, we will never see the true beauty in anything else. If we love Him, we will love seeing Him in all the created wonders in this world. Once our heart is alive to God’s beauty in Christ, it is also alive to God’s beauty everywhere else.

8. Our five senses should become partners with the eyes of the heart in perceiving the glory of God…Everywhere I look, everything I feel, hear, smell, and taste transmits the beauty of God through the beauty of creation.

9. A Christian’s experience of wonder and joy in beauty should be far greater than that of a non-Christian. A Christian’s God-focused enjoyment of creation makes it taste better, look better, feel better, smell better, and sound better. Eternal beauty will remind us of this world’s wonders and pleasures, but only faintly. We won’t miss them or long for them.

10. Heaven will be a super-sensory, indescribable, and joyous experience of beauty that will turn seamlessly unite pleasure and worship.

Top Ten Quotes from the Book

1. Beauty is both a gift and a map. It is a gift to be enjoyed and a map to be followed back to the source of the beauty with praise and thanksgiving.

2. Beauty boomerangs from God into created beauty, then through the senses and soul of the image-bearer, and finally back to God with praise and glory.

3. Alice must grow small if she is to be Alice in Wonderland. – G. K. Chesterton

4. Since everything God created is theology (God-knowledge) all creation is a treasure hunt in which God has left clues—essentially pictures of Himself.

5. Like a bread-crumb trail, earthly beauty chaperones us on a path to “see” the beauty of Christ, for His beauty to lead to wonder, and for wonder to lead us to a life of worship.

6. Each human person individually bears more of a reflection of God than the rest of the universe combined.

7. It’s only the serious theologians who are on the beach at sunset. I refer to us as “theologians” because, whether we realize it or not, we are all going to enjoy a theological experience.

8. Art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster. – Abraham Kuyper

9. The Son of God was a carpenter. He created things. That says something, doesn’t it? God likes it when image-bearers reflect His character by creating beauty.

10. Beauty is beautiful no matter who makes it.