Be a Great Artist < Make Great Art

You are always actively or passively communicating something. Maybe you're communicating through your words that you love someone... through your inaction that you are lazy... or through the way that you walk that you don't have a care in the world.

In Romans 1:19 it says, “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” I think its amazing how much this says about how God communicates and actually tells us something about His standards of truth.

On top of this, the creation account in Genesis 1 and 5 says that mankind was made in God's image. The phrase being used, "imago dei", literally means image, shadow, or likeness.

It may be hard to wrap your mind around, but that means that when you steal, lie, lust, gossip, covet, etc. you are actually lying about God. In other words, when we act in a way contrary to God's character we are denying that we are made in His image.

Our lives are supposed to communicate about God's infinite and beautiful character when so often our lives are communicating the very opposite! It has given me a lot of conviction lately, in particular our example from John the Baptist who said, "I must decrease that he may increase."

What does this have to do with art? Well, speaking of conviction...

Take a look at this small clip from the movie, "F is For Fake" by Orson Welles. This rather odd documentary is supposed to be an essay on deception, forgery, and the unreliability of experts... For the most part, I think the point of the film is to show how the current (current then, anyway) market promotes an artist above the art they are creating. Instead of valuing good art for what it's communicating, they value art based on the opinions of society. I wouldn't recommend watching the whole movie, just this scene, which is a beautiful paragraph in an otherwise disjointed essay.

Even if you don't view yourself as creative or as a designer (I disagree if you don't, but that's beside the point), you do communicate about who God is every day.

Artists in this age take so much time and energy trying to make a name for themselves only to be forgotten 100 years down the road... what if we took that time and energy to communicate things greater than ourselves? What if we made godly virtue the focus of our life's work instead of our own name? What do you think that might communicate and how do you think it would effect the message of the art we produce?

It has all brought me to the conclusion that: Be a Great Artist < Make Great Art.

Methuselah & The Longsuffering Grace of God

     From the beginning of this year, I've been using Ussher's Chronology as a help while working through the Old Testament. I know there are some controversies in the Kings sections, but for the most part it's been really helpful in making the text come alive and giving it all a place in history. Looking at the timeline, it's so cool to see how many people were all alive at the same time... you don't always catch that when just reading through standard "Enosh ben Seth ben Adam" type chronologies .

One of those exciting finds is in the first ten generations of humanity. In Genesis 5, we learn that Adam is Methuselah's 5th great grandfather. Based on their ages, Adam and Methuselah were both alive at the same time! I can hardly imagine my 5th great grandfather, Nathan Hunter, who was born in 1784 being alive at the same time as me. That would have made him 229 years old this year.

That's not to mention that the men in my family live an average of 70 years each. Adam died at 930 years old... his son Seth died at 912 years old... his grandson Enosh died at 905 years old. All the way to Methuselah (with the exception of Enoch) the men of his line lived to an average of about 926 years old. By the time of Methuselah's death, 1600 years of world history had already been completed. That is a lot if you're a young earth creationist: roughly, 1/4 of all of earth history.

I can't imagine what it would be like to sit on my 5th great grandfather Nathan's knee to learn from him. To imagine that Methusaleh could have done the same thing and learned about the world before the fall from his 5th great grandfather, Adam, is astounding.

Last year I learned that the name Methuselah means, "his death shall bring judgement" or "after this comes judgement". That's a rather strange name... out of context! When we learn that Noah was Methuselah's grandson, it isn't so strange anymore. 

Genesis 6 reads, "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence.  And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.  And God said to Noah, 'I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.'"

Now I'm more in line with R. C. Sproul's thinking regarding the beginning of Genesis 6 than most contemporary theologians, but regardless on your stance of the Nephilim, it's apparent that the earth was entirely corrupt with sin and that God intended to bring His wrath upon them. This is the context for Methuselah's name.

It's widely accepted that the catastrophic worldwide flood occurred a week after Methuselah's death. Did you catch that? God's catastrophic judgement of mankind came a week after the death of the man whose name actually means, "his death shall bring judgement". Methuselah was the oldest man that ever lived. It's no coincidence that God allowed the man whose name meant, "his death shall bring judgement" to live longer than any other in all of history.

I think this is a great illustration that the God of the Old and New Testament are the same God. Asides from another testament to God's amazing sovereignty, this is a beautiful picture of how God's long-suffering grace is so perfectly balanced with his just holiness.

Our Family Tree Is Growing!

We could not be more pleased to begin
our blog with this exciting
announcement: 

God has added a new young life to our
family!   Our family "sapling" now
consists of ourselves, Genesis (our
honeymoon baby, who lived only a short
time in the womb), our nine month old
daughter Trinity, and Trinity's new little
brother or sister.  We invite you to join us
in celebrating the life of our new child,
praying for a safe pregnancy, and
awaiting the arrival of the new baby
sometime in September!