Creativity & The Kingdom of God (pt. 4)
Creativity & the Christian
In my previous post, I considered Creativity from the artist’s vantage point. In this post, I will turn to creativity as a Christian. I want to do this, first, by looking at all the commands in Colossians 3:12-4:2:
3:12 Put on:
Heartfelt compassion
Kindness
Humility
Gentleness
Patience
3:13 Acceptance of one another
Forgiveness
3:14 Love—unity
3:15 Let the peace of Messiah control your hearts
Be thankful
3:16 Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you
Teach and admonish another another in all wisdom
Sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude to God
3:17 Do everything (word/deed) in name of Lord Jesus
Give thanks to Go the Father through Him
3:18 Submit to husband (WIVES)
3:19 Love your wives (HUSBANDS)
Don’t be bitter toward them
3:20 Obey parents (KIDS)
3:21 Don’t exasperate the kids (DADS)
PUT ON
Rather than unpacking these commands specifically, I want to consider them as a whole for my purposes here.
To do this, I want you to think of someone in your life who embodied these commands to you. For a moment, rather than think of these commands as Christian duties, consider being on the receiving end of these expressions.
When someone puts on these commands, they dress, or adorn, themselves with the good news of the gospel. Putting these on makes the good news feel good to others. It beautifies it. Our lives are sermons before we ever share the good news to people.
To put these on in our lives is what it looks like to “create good” (Gal 6:9). When we “put these on” we are making good work for those around us. And our works make our faith alive (James).
Some of these quotes come to mind when I consider this “put on-ness” aspect of these verses:
Rick Rubin upon meeting the Avett Brothers.
“In the first 30 seconds of meeting them
I knew that they were people I wanted to work with.
And it seemed like being around
them will make life better”
Francis Schaeffer
"Even for the great artist, the most crucial work of art is his life.” (Art and the Bible)
CS Lewis
“Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.” (Mere Christianity)
Mark 6:20b (The Message)
“Whenever [Herod] listened to [John]
he was miserable with guilt—
and yet he couldn’t stay away.
Something in John kept pulling him back.”
In this way, we are all creative. We make the gospel beautiful with good works. We do this in many moments in the day. One story illustrates this well.
Remove All the “Shoulds”
I remember the season my wife and I had our first child with glimpses of both fuzziness and clarity. One moment stands out. As we sat down with a pastor and his wife, we shared how we were adjusting as new parents. “We just don’t have the capacity to keep up with the variety of things [ministry things] we should be doing,” I said. “Well,” said my pastor friend,” I think you need to remove all the shoulds out of your life.”
That was it. That simple. With one word of encouragement, my friend created a whole new world for us to live and operate in. He used that moment for creativity. He chose to put on heartfelt compassion.
Being Metaphorical Christs - The Creative Effort
This takes intentional action on our part—to manifest good works which do not yet exist.
Love is never a one-size-fits-all action.
It sees the many needs in the many moments of the day,
It steps in, and
It meets those needs.
This is what I call be “metaphorical Christs.”
We are the image of Jesus when we act in such manners.
In my next post, I want to highlight the final way I want to look at creativity and the kingdom: creativity and God.
