Is art a spiritual gift?

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Beauty in worship
Beauty in worship (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Does God care about truth? Clearly, the answer is yes, for the words He speaks are truth itself (John 14:6). Is God concerned with goodness? How could he not be, since "no one is good except God alone"? (Mark 10:18). Does God love beauty? I suspect that most of us would answer, "yes," but do we really believe it? Do we design worship with beauty in mind? Do we look at writing music, telling stories, and sculpting and painting as callings? How often do we think about promoting beauty in the culture and adorning all that we do with what is beautiful?

Such questions are important because it is easy for us to lose sight of the extent to which God prizes beauty. Our Creator made the world with beauty in mind, as we see in the variety of colors, shapes, and other elements in the world around us. The Lord prizes artistic endeavors such as the writing and playing of music, for He worked through David to appoint musicians for His worship (1 Chron. 25). Moreover, the first people described in Scripture as being filled with the Spirit were artisans skilled in sculpting, carving, and design, men who crafted the tabernacle, its furniture, and the priestly garments (Ex. 31:1–11).

As Christians, we must be concerned with what concerns God, which means that beauty must be our focus as well.

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