The Mind of Christ in His World: Part 2 (5)
And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoketo him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” Acts 10.13-15
A proper lens
Peter would undoubtedly still be sitting somewhere scratching his head over the vision sent to him by God were it not for one thing: God provided an explanatory text to help the apostle understand His meaning.
As Peter would later understand completely, the words of the Lord instructing him to eat unclean foods, and advising him that these had all been made clean, explained the vision as a whole, and freed him to enter the home of a Gentile and preach Christ to him.
Great art serves the purposes of truth when, like so much excellent Christian art, it is grounded in God’s revelation; such art can only be fully understood when the revelation of God in Scripture provides the lens through which we seek to understand art. The better we understand God’s Word, the more we’ll be able to appreciate, and grow from, those works of Christian art created from within the framework of a Christian worldview. It simply is not possible to understand or benefit from the works of artists like Cowper, Bach, Vivaldi, Dürer, and scores more unless our minds engage both the art and the Word of God at the same time.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins, the 19th century English poet, understood this truth quite well. We often find in his poems direct links to images, thoughts, and even quotes from Scripture. These remind us that Hopkins’ point derives from the Word of God and can only be fully understood when we read the poem in that light. He may be using an ordinary, everyday image to communicate his meaning, but he will surround that image with so much Biblical allusion that getting our minds around his point is not difficult. And once we get his point, the image used to convey that point makes a permanent stamp in our minds, and stretches them in the direction of the mind of Christ.
A wonderful poem like “God’s Grandeur” might be shoe-horned into the service of some political movement, except that Hopkins insists it be understood in the light of God’s purposes in Scripture.
The references to the way human toil blears and smears the beauty of the earth, and how men have become insensitive to the damage they inflict on the environment, could easily make this a poem that environmentalists might latch onto for political purposes. The hopeful words, in the final stanza, about the renewing powers of the creation would seem right up the environmentalist’s alley.
But if we take the poem as a whole, we note that Hopkins, following Scripture, is not interested in environmental causes; His objective is far greater and more gloriously transcendent.
“The world is charged with the grandeur of God” declares the opening line, as if echoing Psalm 19.1-4. That transcendent beauty is visible on every hand. It flares or oozes out at us from many quarters. Yes, men by their sinful employments have lost sight of that glory, and wrought damage to the creation. But there is always hope of seeing the glory of God in it, for the creation every day renews itself afresh.
Why? Because it is a power to be revered and preserved for its own sake? For itself alone? No, as Hopkins explains in the concluding lines: “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent/World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
Here Hopkins points us to the first verses of the Bible, insisting that the glory of the creation, and the proper understanding and care of it, can only be accomplished in the light of God’s purposes and Word, and by the power of God’s Spirit. Here, indeed, is art in the service of truth.
Exercising the mind through the world
Poets like Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wendell Berry, and Richard Wilbur are adept at taking everyday objects and suffusing them with mind-expanding truth, by connecting them with Biblical teaching or imagery. Their poetry has the double benefit of helping us to see familiar truths in a new light, and of connecting truths and ideas with everyday objects, so that, when we encounter those objects during the day, our minds can be piqued for a Biblical worldview all over again.
Jesus was the Master of using everyday objects, cast into stories, as vehicles of truth. His use of coins, farms and farmers, plants, animals, kings, businessmen, seeds, fields, and more challenged people to think about profound ideas according to familiar, everyday objects and situations. This would have had a double effect. First, it would have helped make difficult ideas such as the Kingdom of God more readily accessible to the minds of schooled and unschooled people alike. Second, it would have set a prompt in people’s thinking which, when they saw those objects at other times, would recall the truth Jesus taught.
Christian artists in all genre and every generation have understood that ideas connected with art forms can make deep and lasting impressions on how and what we think. Their work can serve us still today, like the story-form art Jesus used, to help us grow in our understanding of truth and mature toward the mind of Christ.
For reflection
1. Take five minutes and jot down as many everyday items or situations you can think of that Jesus used to teach about the Kingdom of God:
2. Take one of those items and explain how Jesus suffused it with mind-expanding truth to enlarge our thinking about the Kingdom of God:
3. Look around you, right where you are. Choose one item in your purview, and think about how you might use that item to explain the Kingdom of God to someone. Jot down your thoughts.
Next steps – Conversation: Using the item you focused on in question 3, talk with a Christian friend today about how this item helps you think about the Kingdom of God. Explain how you connect this item with the teaching of Scripture.
T. M. Moore
This is part 7 of a multi-part series on the Christian mind. To download this week’s study as a free PDF, click here. To learn more about creational theology, order a copy of T. M.’s book, Consider the Lilies (click here).
Brush up on your Christian worldview, and stretch your mind to think about life and the world as Jesus does. Our free online course, One in Twelve: Introduction to Christian Worldview, can provide the categories, terms, and framework for you to begin nurturing a more expansive Christian mind. For more information and to register, click here.
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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.