Okay, I guess technically the first artist in the Bible is God, but today in my devotional reading, I got to Exodus 31, which tells us about Bezalel. If you haven’t read this chapter, as a Christian creative, you need to. As we read through the previous chapters, Scripture takes a break from the story of the exodus from Egypt to give us some very detailed instructions from God on how the tabernacle and all it’s implements, as well as the robes for the priests, incense, etc. are to be constructed. I can almost imagine Moses going, “Lord, I’m not an artist, how am I going to do this?”
Then in chapter 31, God answers the question. God fills someone with His Spirit and gives him gifts to create all that is required. This is incredibly good news for those of us in the church with a creative bent. As far as I can see, this artist, a man named Bezalel, is the first person listed in Scripture to be filled with God’s Spirit. His artistic, creative gifts, come from God, and, just as all good things do, so do yours. You might say we creatives have a Bezalel anointing, though I don’t want to push that too far. Instead, I want to look at something related to our call. God’s specifications for the Tabernacle were very exacting and He gifted Bezalel to meet those specifications. As discussed in an earlier post, there was still plenty of room to create within those boundaries, but the boundaries were very important.
If you go to the next chapter, we see the first recorded misuse of creativity by God’s people, the golden calf. This is the polar opposite of Bezalel’s calling. Here an image was made that not only had nothing to do with the Lord, but was specifically the opposite of what God wants us to do with the skills He has given us. People created in God’s image are not supposed to create gods that fit their image of what God should be. They had just seen God part the Red Sea, dispose of the most powerful army in the world at that time, and free them from 400 years of captivity. It’s only been a few days and already they’re making idols to lead them back to slavery. That’s the only thing an idol can do, enslave us and I think that’s the point.
There is immense freedom in living God’s way and we have immense creative freedom in God. He created us to create. The question then is what will we do with our freedom? Will we use it to honor God or turn away from Him? The best thing we can do with our creative freedom is to submit our gifts to the Lord.
When we are submitted to Him, we are truly free!
AMOKArts 