Everything that we know of which is seen or unseen. Whether it is our planet or into universe was created with the power of God creating it.
He said, “Let there be light and there was Light.” Genesis 1:3
This marks the beginning of the universe and civilization, God continues being the great creator out of nothing for a while. All he uses is his mouth, his mouth is like the paint brush which paints everything into existence. It seems he makes the most of creation out of nothing until we get to human beings and to make humans he forms us out of the dust. He starts to show how you make something beautiful out of something very plain. We are made out of the dust, the difference is though that the creator of everything breathes life into his creation.
Then when we come to woman the second human, God uses a rib from Adam to create Eve. Here God is showing us in some way how to create. We have the raw materials but we breathe life into our creation to see it take on beauty.
We are made in God’s image that means that we have the same creative power as our father if we are subject to him. We can create out of something but we can also create out of nothing also.
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
We are called a piece of Art in one of Paul’s letters some translations say masterpiece.
CREATIVITY POWER IN PRAYER
VOICE TO CREATE
Now God used is actual voice to create, so that means that we can do that too. Intercession is a place where we can use our creative anointing to create by our words in the spirit.
“I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven , and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “
We do that with out voice we bind and loose things with our voice, in some way we can create here on earth what is in heaven or we can bind it up and remove it with our voice.
RULE AND REIGN OVER DUST
A couple of weeks ago we said that we are to rule over the earth, the origins of the earth are dust. We can use that same creative power in the voice when we take authority over a sick body as all life goes back to dust and God has given us authority over the earth that means including the dust.
“The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into it’s nostrils the breathe of life, and the man became a living being
CREATIVE MIRACLES
Creative miracles, when we speak a limb etc into being we have authority to do this because we are creating with our voice and calling what we can see in heaven into being.
If God’s words have power that means that our words have power too, and that can be negative or positive. James talks about the power of the tongue and a lot of proverbs talks about it to.
POPULAR CULTURE
ENGAGING WITH CULTURE - MOVIES AND POPULAR CULTURE
Is popular culture evil ?
What do you think about popular culture, should Christians engage with it – discuss ?
How do we engage with news etc and TV etc without getting consumed by it ?
POPULAR CULTURE AND YOUTH WORK
In my role as a youth worker and even amongst my colleagues I can feel quite out of touch with what is going on in the world at a social media or popular culture level. I have settings on my phone which means if anything big is happening in the world the tweet comes straight to my phone.
PAUL KNEW ABOUT POPULAR CULTURE
As Christians we get scared of popular culture we think that if I engage with it have anything to do with it then I am sinning or not being Holy or Godly. I do not believe that knowing about something means you are sinning. If you read the letters from Paul, he had a clear understanding of the people and communities he was writing to.
ENTERTAINMENT – DON’T LET IT BECOME A BLANKET
However we must not become consumers of popular culture, we must use it and not allow it to use us. Very often entertainment is designed to dull the senses to make us think that everything is cosy and nice. Furthermore to make us forget about the real world, I am thinking of such things as love Island, soaps even some films, video games. Now there is nothing wrong with entertainment but do not allow it to master you to cloud your judgement. Be careful how you wind down, nothing wrong with a bit of TV, a bit of a scroll of social media, a movie once a week but if you are binging on something you have to ask why but also are you using your time effectively, there is so much to be doing out there.
SABBATH
Even Sabbath should be intentional in the sense of intentional rest to rest with Jesus spending more time with him, re-fueling your batteries. What do you find refreshing and renewing to face the battle when you get back into routine.
Is God interested in Memes, social media apps etc
How can we be intentional about popular culture ?
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WATCH BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT WHAT YOU WATCH
Remember I talked some weeks ago that God can point thing out through what is going on around us. For example our need and idolatry of a celeb culture shows that we have a need to worship someone. People’s desire to watch horror movies or the amount of occultic or supernatural based programmes out there means there is a need in people’s lives for the transcendental and spiritual.
TAKE AN INTEREST IN WHAT PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN TO WIN THEM
EXAMPLE FROM LAST WORK
Now I often think to myself all these memes and role playing games what an utter waste of time. I totally think it is a waste of time and whats more I think it is dangerous. However as I was preparing this God challenged me to take an interest in what they are interested in and not be scared that knowing about some of the dark things they are up to is going to contaminate me. After all I am interested not because I want to join in this nonsense but I want to understand the way they tick so that I know how I can reach them with the gospel.
Friends we cannot ignore what much of the world is into. How can we reach people if we know nothing about them what they are doing or what they think about. We need to be interested in what they are interested in.
FUNCTIONS OF ART
· Set apart
· Celebrate
· Vessel for worship
· Unlocks emotions – Art speaks to the heart, it bypasses the head and goes to the heart. Therefore it can make you feel something that you do not think is logical.
WERE GOING TO BE LOOKING AT THE BOOK OF EXODUS
God values Creativity
God is a creator its an important part of his nature and Identity – that means that we too are creators and as we are made in the image of God we also have the same creativity as God.
In fact God has a massive value for Art and artist in the bible. Exodus is full of detailed descriptions of artistic pieces and the process that is gone through for these to come into existence.
We saw how God could and can speak things into being but that is not what he chooses here, he wants to show how the artistic process works.
SET APART
IDOLTARY AND CELEBRITISM
Yet Art must never lead to idolatry the Bible is very hot on this, the people around the Israelites used A
rt for idolatry and even the Israelites fell into this time and again. It was their back up plan, when Moses did not come back down the mountain as they expected they made a golden calf out of all the gold they had. They went right back to idolatry just like all the other people groups around them. God wanted them to be different.
Celebritism is a kind of idolatry, which we have in the world today in a world of Instagram and facebook. Because people were made to worship but they were also made creative yet again the creativity, whether you like celebrities or not even if it’s something like cooking online showing their new clothing line off or just going to the nicest places in town. People are drawn to creativity that is because it is a key aspect of the nature of God. As a result they give honour where it is not due because they are not giving it to God.
Yet the enemy will try to warp and twist it time and again it happened time and again in the bible and it happens now. For this reason Christians have been wary in the past of mixing creativity and Art with God because it has gone wrong but if we have the value that everything can point us to the glory of God and we don’t give glory to the item or person but simply see them as a vessel then God can be glorified and Creativity and Art can be used powerfully to bring people closer to Jesus.
This is what we see here in these chapters of Exodus, after God has given the ten commandments, once he has laid down the values by which people should live. He continues to tell Moses to put physical items and structures in place to remind the people of God’s existence and there is a lot of reference to creativity and even recreation in these chapters.
ART AS A VESSEL
That is why God wanted to show them that Art and creativity could be holy he wanted to use it as vehicle for worshipping him. In the past they had worshipped the art but this time the art would be what would point people to God. The Art was a vessel
IDOLTARY VS ALTARS
After they had been caught up in the sin of idolatry he wanted to show the difference between idolatry and celebration.
“ Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.”
Firstly, he replaces idolatry with Altars in exodus 20:22
CELEBRATION
FESTIVALS
Then in Exodus 23:14 God talks about three festivals to celebrate the goodness of God and life in general.
· Feast of the unleavened Bread – when they came out of Egypt
· Feast of the Harvest – First-fruits of the crops
· Feast of the ingathering
The people were used to celebrating but the way they did it was often extremely unholy with orgies and other unsavory practices, Yahweh has just shown his dominance over the gods of Egypt by sending the plagues.
Ironically the people were doing these practices having their own festival down below worshipping the golden calf. God is showing here though that he is not against festivals and parties, but there is a way to do it honorably. Festivals are very popular in our present culture we think of Glastonbury but there are many many all over the world. They tend to be for the worship of musicians and places of drug taking and drinking etc, however if you have ever seen people going to a festival they tend to have glitter on their faces and be dressed up there is a creativity to them along with the celebration of musical creativity. Festivals are clearly of God here but they need to look different they are a picture of God’s creativity.
VESSEL OF WORSHIP
SHOW ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
IN THE TABERNACLE –
THE ARK
“Have them make an ark That is, a chest of acacia wood—two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. That is, about 3 3/4 feet long and 2 1/4 feet wide and high or about 1.1 meters long and 68 centimeters wide and high; similarly in verse 17 11Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law, which I will give you.
“Make an atonement cover of pure gold—two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the tablets of the covenant law that I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.
ROYALTY AND BEAUTY
There is something about the royalty of God, that he is emphasizing here, God is not just about function he is about Beauty because true beauty displays the nature of God. Remember when he finished creation he said that it was good, not it will do it was good. You only have to look at creation and even the human being to see the beauty of God. He uses Gold to portray the royalty of God, the wealth the richness but also the fact that this Ark was to be set apart, it was holy. When something has God on it is set apart not for everyday use.
THE TABLE – Again the table is overlayed with Gold this is not a normal everyday table for eating every -day meals. Even the plates and dishes were to be Gold
“Make a table of acacia wood—two cubits long, a cubit wide and a cubit and a half high. That is, about 3 feet long, 1 1/2 feet wide and 2 1/4 feet high or about 90 centimeters long, 45 centimeters wide and 68 centimeters high. Overlay it with pure gold and make a gold molding around it. Also make around it a rim a handbreadth. That is, about 3 inches or about 7.5 centimeters wide and put a gold molding on the rim. Make four gold rings for the table and fasten them to the four corners, where the four legs are. The rings are to be close to the rim to hold the poles used in carrying the table. Make the poles of acacia wood, overlay them with gold and carry the table with them. And make its plates and dishes of pure gold, as well as its pitchers and bowls for the pouring out of offerings. Put the bread of the Presence on this table to be before me at all times.”
LAMPSTAND –
“Make a lampstand of pure gold. Hammer out its base and shaft, and make its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms of one piece with them. Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand—three on one side and three on the other. Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, three on the next branch, and the same for all six branches extending from the lampstand. And on the lampstand there are to be four cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms. One bud shall be under the first pair of branches extending from the lampstand, a second bud under the second pair, and a third bud under the third pair—six branches in all. The buds and branches shall all be of one piece with the lampstand, hammered out of pure gold.
“Then make its seven lamps and set them up on it so that they light the space in front of it. 38Its wick trimmers and trays are to be of pure gold. A talent That is, about 75 pounds or about 34 kilograms of pure gold is to be used for the lampstand and all these accessories. See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
I love the detail and description of the flowers it says exactly what the flowers are. Again this was not a normal lamp. What this passages describes is beautiful the way the lampstand is made in the form of a budding and blossoming Almond tree. God is showing off here as an artist the design is amazing.
PRIESTLY GARMENTS – The jewels in the breastplate are beautiful the type you get in rings, rubies, emeralds, jasper and others. Also the yarn which was used was special scarlet
BASIN AND INCENSE
Besides the beauty in all of these items there is huge amounts of symbolism behind each decoration and thread.
ARTISTS
BEZALEL AND OHOLIAB
At the end of the instructions of what all the arts, crafts and objects he tells him to go and find these two people.
God values what we create – he gave Moses detailed instructions of how to build a tabernacle.
God could have just spoken it into existence but he chose to use a crafts man to do it.
So not only does God have a huge value for Art and what is beautiful but he also has a huge value for Artists and Crafts people here. God names the two people who will lead the team of the execution of this project and the decoration of these items. Bezalel means protection under God, Bezalel was an important person and his name says that Artist are ones who need protecting.
Artists need to be filled with the spirit just as Bezalel was, creativity had been high-jacked so often before so the person leading this team needed to be led by the spirit in the same way that Moses was.
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts”
Often we don’t think of an artist or creativity as being related to wisdom understanding and knowledge. God recognizes artists as being highly skilled. This artist would be showing the royalty, majesty, magnitude awesomeness of God through what he was making. He needed to be deeply connected to the spirit of God so that he was able to recreate what was in the heart of God for these amazing works which would lead people into the heart of God.
OHOLIAB
His meaning mean’s father’s tent so both have this covering element to them
Art and Creativity were not just an after thought they are at the very heart of God. God wanted the tabernacle the place where his presence was going to be to be beautiful.
There’s was a spiritual calling just as important as any of the other main players, here again we see God has no divide between the sacred and secular the role of architect, artist and crafts person is just as important as other roles.
MAKING HOLY AND SABBATH
It is this artistic and beautifying of these things and setting things aside for best, for celebration and for rest which sets us aside as a people.
Sabbath making a day holy is what breaks up the mundane everyday routine in the same way as art does. Creativity makes something special in the same way that Sabbath is a special day of the week.
That is why it is placed here in scripture there is a deep connection between using creativity to make something Holy.
God has a value for setting things apart and he does this through creativity, breaking away from the mundane. That is why creative times are important they take us away from the routine and mundane, they also give us opportunity to connect with the spiritual.
Festivals and holidays are important because they give us opportunity to celebrate life and God often through creativity thinking about the decorations we put up to make a place special. It is important to celebrate birthdays and special days by using creativity to do something different.
Creativity in these moments connects us with God.
Sabbath also gives us time to reflect but also to be creative which can help us re-charge our batteries and refresh us. Being creative just for the sake of it playing with Daddy.
We see the juxtaposion here of Spirit filled Idolatry versus the spirit filled artist and plan of God.
THEN WE SEE THE INTRODUCTION OF BEZALEL AND OHOLIAB
Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.
So Bezalel, Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lordhas given skill and ability to know how to carry out all the work of constructing the sanctuary are to do the work just as the Lordhas commanded.”
2Then Moses summoned Bezalel and Oholiab and every skilled person to whom the Lordhad given ability and who was willing to come and do the work. 3They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary
God has already pointed Bezalel and Oholiab out now Moses announces their existence and there new role to the rest of the Israelites by mentioning where they are descended from he is commissioning them for this task. Notice he does not say they will be filled with the spirit, he says that they are already filled with the spirit. To me this means that these men already had a relationship with God. He is also calling this gifting forth recognizing it and speaking the presence of the spirit of God over them.
They are also not the only ones but they will be the leadership for this colossal creative task. There were many more who had the skill and ability for the task, so therefore many more craftsmen or artists among them.
There are resources available for arts and crafts also, interestingly the people already had many of the resources needed for this task. The people were to give a free-will offering arts and crafts are close to God’s heart.
OTHER EXAMPLES OF ART IN THE BIBLE
· David as a musician and a worship leader
· Solomon building his palace and temple – all the crafts people needed then as well
· Proverbs 31 woman was a Seamstress
· The women who made clothes for Jesus
· All the writers of the Bible
ART AND THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY EXPERIENCE – At Uni I did Art and theology everyone said what you going to do paint stainglass windows at which I would laugh. I don’t think I realized how deeply the two subjects are interlinked, over the years I have come to realise that being an artist is a spiritual vocation. Especially as a prophetic artist who desires to paint what God is saying. Of course if we are Christian we should be painting something that worships God
MY OWN CREATIVE JOURNEY
To connect us with the spiritual
There is spiritual power behind art and creativity that is why God gave instructions how to use all the special items in Exodus. The same spiritual power is behind art today no matter what kind of art it is.
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