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Seeing the Word: An Introduction to Illumination

Seeing the Word: An Introduction to Illumination

THE ACCESSIBILITY OF GOD’S WORD

Have you ever stopped to think how incredible it is that we are able to have such immediate and unrestricted access to God’s Word? It was not always so in the history of the church, and still isn’t for some believers today. While Scripture is not always easy to understand, we can engage with it in a myriad of forms whenever and wherever we want. We can choose from multiple translations, read it on an app that will give us access to the original language, and listen to recordings at almost any speed we want.

It is a massive privilege to have so many ways to access Scripture, especially to accommodate unique learning styles. But such privilege can create indifference. If we aren’t careful, the living Word of God can become just another kind of media consumed in the same manner as other information.

 

THE WRITTEN WORD OF GOD AS A RARE WORK OF ART

As an undergraduate, I studied in Florence, Italy for a semester, devoting all of my learning energy to Renaissance Florence. I began to truly see the arts and sciences as deeply shaped by time and place, interconnected and influencing one another. I saw an illuminated manuscript for the first time in a side chapel of a cathedral in Florence. Illuminated manuscripts are a historic art form, and they comprised a range of texts from contracts and legal documents to poetry and Scripture. To be illuminated, a manuscript generally contains some kind of decoration in the form of ornate calligraphy or illustrations. Illumination has existed in various cultures from around the world. This particular volume was like a predecessor to a church hymnal, though it was at least five times the size of any hymnal I had ever seen. The letters were decorated with bright pigments and gilded with real gold. It was more beautiful than any other musical score I had ever laid eyes on. This manuscript was not made to be creased, marked and used, but venerated and treasured.

In the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, these manuscripts were handwritten by scribes, often on vellum made from animal skins. Even the most skilled scribes typically produced only a few pages per day. When editors found mistakes, they had to be painstakingly sanded off the page or creative notes had to be made in the margins to clarify or add missing words, because to start over meant discarding days’ worth of work. Entire workshops were devoted to the creation of a single manuscript, sometimes taking years to complete.

In the late Middle Ages, the largest library in western Europe included less than 2000 books. If a household owned even a single volume, they were considered very wealthy. You can probably imagine how rare it was to have a copy of the Bible in your household at this time in history. The Word of God was not nearly so accessible to them as it is to us.

The accessibility of knowledge in written form changed forever in 1450 with the invention of the Gutenberg press, and with movable type came the ability to mass produce books in the Western world. What had once been accomplished by human hands could now be done by machine at over a thousand times the speed. In fact, Gutenberg’s first project was to print a new edition of the Bible. But before movable type, copies of the Bible in a single volume were extremely rare. Instead, you’d find several books of the Bible grouped together, like the gospels or the psalms.

Because of their rarity, these manuscripts were precious, and so a lot of effort went into making them beautiful. These handwritten Bibles featured beautiful calligraphy–the words themselves were works of art. Detailed paintings, decorations, and symbolic imagery graced the pages alongside the words. Some volumes are so big that they take up to three librarians to lift. But not all of these books were created for ceremonial display; there were also devotional prayer books built around the passing hours of the day that were essentially pocket-sized and likely used in personal worship. Even these pocket volumes were lavishly decorated across the pages and margins.

Some of the images and symbols from these Bibles feel totally foreign to modern viewers, while others are awe-inspiring in their detail and beauty. The Bible stands as a living artifact, in many ways outside of time. Human beings continue to carry Scripture in their hearts and minds through time, which means that we wear a specific lens when we engage with it, and it takes effort to become aware of that. This is a beautiful reminder of the fact that God chose to partner with human beings in the ancient Near East who were bound to their particular time and place, too. They also wore a cultural lens, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God used people to create something that transcends time and continues to alter the course of the future.

 

“IMAGISTIC” THINKING AND SCRIPTURE

The vast majority of Bibles from the Middle Ages were illuminated, and that speaks volumes about the way Western Christians in that time period approached the text. It doesn’t just mean that they valued beauty as a part of their practice of worship, it also communicates that images were valuable to their process of understanding and meditating upon Scripture.

Imagistic thinking means that when we encounter an image, either in a painting or in the pages of Scripture, rather than only evaluating it analytically or materially, we are looking for the connections and meaning behind it. John Walton argues in his book The Lost World of Adam and Eve that ancient Near Easterners were imagistic thinkers, and were “more likely to think of the world in terms of symbols and to express their understanding by means of imagery.” By contrast, in our culture we are more analytical and scientific in our thinking, and are “primarily concerned with causation, composition, and systematization.”

A great example of imagistic thinking comes in Exodus 14, when God gives Moses the power to divide the sea and makes a way for the Israelites to pass through on dry ground.

The image here is of water being divided and dry ground emerging. The first time we see this image is during days two and three of creation, when God orders the chaotic waters and makes a way for human beings to survive on dry land. If modern readers analyze Exodus 14 and focus only on the material possibility of separating water in the particular manner described in this text or focus on the question of the historical accuracy or dating of such an event, they miss the rich meaning behind the image: God orders chaos and makes a way for salvation, no matter how dire the circumstances, and he has been doing so since the very beginning of creation. This doesn’t mean we disregard questions that are natural for us to ask, like, “Did this actually happen?” It means we don’t only ask those questions.

Art can sometimes remind us that there are invisible meanings and connections beyond what we can see and understand, and if we develop our capacities to engage meaningfully with art, it can assist us in the more difficult process of engaging with the complex images of Scripture. There’s always another layer of meaning we can discover beneath any given passage. Art also provides a material means for us to meditate upon an image without needing to hold it in our imagination. We live in an increasingly visual culture and younger generations are filled with more visual learners.

 

PROLONGING OUR ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD

It isn’t just recovering imagistic thinking that makes illumination valuable. Contemplating illuminations with the text slows us down, beckons us to stop and look, and through that act of intentional seeing, it enables us to notice things that we may not have otherwise. Sacred artists spend time soaking in Scripture and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and they return from that in-between place, offering us a glimpse of their experiences through their work.

When I consider the workshops of illuminators from the past, I imagine artists and thinkers who spent their days contemplating the text and in this in-between, meditative state, they created places for the readers of Scripture to prolong the moment of being in the presence of the Living God.

 

WHAT WAS LOST AND THEN FOUND: IMAGE WITH WORD

With the invention of the printing press, the practice of illumination rapidly declined. Books could be mass produced and so they became less precious. The materials used to produce books changed with technological advances. Yet, though it declined, illumination did not disappear entirely. There were some workshops that continued to produce illuminated manuscripts. It was after the end of the Renaissance that the practice of illumination faded into obscurity.

Fast forward nearly four hundred years to Collegeville, Minnesota, a small town northwest of the twin cities. British calligrapher Donald Jackson was visiting Saint John’s Abbey and University in 1995. Jackson had encountered an illuminated manuscript in a local museum as a child, and his dream of one day creating an illuminated Bible was born. While visiting Saint John’s, he sensed the high value they placed upon aesthetics and faith. He invited them to share in his vision of a modern illuminated Bible, and Saint John’s University made the huge commitment of time and resources to commission one of the first complete illuminated Bibles since the invention of the printing press.

 

THE SAINT JOHN’S BIBLE

This project was a collaborative effort of theologians, scribes, artists, and craftspeople from around the world. It was created in seven volumes, with over 1,100 pages that are two feet tall and three feet wide. Each page of calligraphy took 7-13 hours to complete and was written on calfskin vellum using turkey, goose, and swan quills. The team of scribes used natural handmade inks, hand-ground pigments, and gold and silver leaf gilding. There are over 160 illuminations that grace the pages.

The project took over eleven years and cost 8 million dollars, funded by approximately 1,500 donors.

Though the materials and processes used to create the Saint John’s Bible mirrored the ancient practices of Medieval Bibles, the symbolism, art, and imagery of these Bibles is firmly rooted in the twenty-first century, a reminder of our ongoing participation in carrying Scripture forward, bound as we are to our particular time and place.

One beautiful example of this is that all of the symbolic illuminations that feature plants and animals in the Saint John’s Bible are native species to either the woods surrounding Saint John’s University or Jackson’s scriptorium in Wales. One illumination is of a monarch butterfly in various stages of transformation. The monarch was an endangered species at the time the Bible was created, and one of the donors was heavily involved in conservation efforts to save monarchs. At the same time, the chrysalis and butterfly are powerful symbols of death and resurrection. This reveals the many layers of meaning and significance that can exist within an image, some of them tied to time and place, while others are timeless.

The Saint John’s Bible is a gift to modern Christians. It speaks to the power of beauty as we engage with the truth of God’s word. As a visual artist and an arts advocate, it also reminds me of the role the church can have in encouraging artists as a community. When the Holy Spirit spoke the dream of creating an illuminated Bible into Donald Jackson’s heart as a boy, I doubt Jackson understood how many people it would take to realize such a vision. God’s provision can be seen all over the pages of this magnificent Bible, and it will be a heritage of beauty and truth for generations to come.

 

RESOURCES FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION

View the Book of Kells online. This is a gospel book from c. 800, and it opens with ornate visuals that demonstrate the harmony of the gospels.

The Black Hours is a worship book containing the office of the hours that was created on vellum that was stained black. You can view the manuscript online.

The Ebbo Gospels can’t be viewed in its entirety online, but you can see the stunning and unique portraits of the gospel authors, which are in a style that is energetic and unusual for the time period.

The Saint John’s Bible has an amazing website that you can explore to learn more.

David: The Lord’s Anointed

David: The Lord’s Anointed

What do Michalangelo, William Faulker, and Gregory Peck have in common? All of them have devoted significant time and effort to portray the biblical figure of David. If you think about it, some of our most famous sculptures, movies, and songs (Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” anyone?) have been inspired by David. His triumphs over Goliath and his failures with Bathsheeba are common knowledge, even if one isn’t familiar with the rest of his life. Considering how few people have actually read the Old Testament these days, that is saying something. 

This is no less true within the biblical narrative itself. Outside of Jesus, no human figure is talked about, referenced, or alluded to more than David. The Psalms are riddled with his name—as an author, or example, or symbol. The gospels include him in every genealogy. One of Jesus’ most popular titles was Son of David. Pretty much any time kings or kingdoms are mentioned, you can be sure David’s shadow looms large. 

And it all started in 1 and 2 Samuel. The author of that single scroll (the 1 and 2 were added later) was adamant that, like Abraham and Moses, David’s life represented a significant moment in the history of God’s people; and even though it would take 55 chapters to tell it, his story was critical to a life of faith. 

David was a shepherd, the youngest son of Jesse, whom no one believed would one day be king. He experienced the entire range of human emotion, from resounding triumph over Goliath, to rejection as he fled from Saul, from ascending to the throne in Jerusalem, to fleeing his own son who tried to kill him. He is, on the one hand, a man after God’s own heart, and on the other, a frail and fickle leader who fails his people time and again. 

Every detail of his life, and every chapter of 1 and 2 Samuel which records it, contain lessons, examples, and principles we can learn from. In our series on David, we want to explore as many of them as we can. But the most important thing David does is leave us wanting more, wanting better, wanting someone else. He is as good a king as we can hope for; and yet he isn’t nearly enough. He is like a first pass, a rough draft, that is so close, and yet so far away, from what it could be. 

He is the Lord’s anointed, the messiah, the king, but don’t let the pageantry fool you. David is human, weak, stubborn, and broken. He is a fellow pilgrim on the way to a higher country, an exile searching for a permanent homeland, flesh and blood longing for an other-wordly king. Join us in this series on David’s life as we explore the most indispensable lesson he taught us: we still need a King. 

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

A Lasting Legacy Can Be an Act of Faith

 As Christians, we are called to be stewards — stewards of our faith, of our loved ones, and of the things in our lives that God has blessed us with. Estate planning is a meaningful way to care for yourself, your family, and the communities and ministries close to your heart. 

For many Christians, this critical life task can be an important way to put their faith into action and create a lasting legacy that upholds their values and beliefs for generations to come.
 

Why Estate Planning?

When you make a will, you have the opportunity to contribute to the people and causes you love on your own terms. Just as God’s love sustains us and unites our communities around a shared purpose, estate planning can sustain your personal faith today, tomorrow, and for years to come. You have the power to communicate your wishes and steward your resources with care, purpose, and compassion. 

In the New Testament, we read that the early Christians were known for their radical generosity, using their resources to care for their community and some selling property and giving the proceeds to be used for those in need (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-37). 

This trajectory is rooted in the history of the Israelites setting aside the edges of their fields for gleaning by widows, orphans, the poor, and the needy (Leviticus 19:9-10, Deuteronomy 24:19-22).

Today, the seeds of generosity have been planted for you, and you can pull from these deep-rooted traditions to create an estate plan that sustains a legacy of selflessness. 

 

Your Faith, Your Family, Your Legacy

Estate planning is also a powerful way to communicate with your loved ones and your family. When we think of what it means to be a steward of everything God has entrusted to our care — our families, careers, and finances — it is easy to forget about the final act of stewardship we have after we leave this earth. 

How will our lifetime of stewardship impact those we love after we are gone? Creating a will empowers you to pass your faith forward and steward your resources in ways that continue to support what matters to you. You can communicate important financial, healthcare, and end-of-life wishes in your estate plan and through your last will and testament to support your family and those who may be charged with your estate. 


Getting Started with Christ Community
 

 As a member of the Evangelical Free Church of America, our purpose is to serve you and your loved ones in your faith, influencing our community and world for Jesus Christ. That’s why we have partnered with FreeWill, a secure online estate planning resource that allows you to begin building one element of your legacy of faith – at no cost to you. 

This simple, self-guided platform offers step-by-step guidance on how to direct the use of  what God has given you in ways that honor the word and work of the Lord. 

No single generation builds a church. The beauty of Christ Community is in all of us who take up the cross, build lives around the Bible, and love the church. 

Resources:

Generosity Paper

Visit FreeWill.com/cckc to get started today

Living a Generous Life: Planning a Lasting Legacy

Integrating Faith at Work | Mitch Holthus | POD 004

Integrating Faith at Work | Mitch Holthus | POD 004

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Hosts & Guests

Mitch Holthus, Voice of the Kansas City Chiefs

Paul Brandes – Host

Bill Gorman – Co-Host

Show Notes

We hope to challenge you to think deeply about what it means to follow Jesus in all of life.

 
In this episode of theFormed.life podcast, we talk with the Voice of the Chiefs, our very own Mitch Holthus. Mitch tells us about his work with the Chiefs and what it looks like to integrate faith into all of life, sharing the truth of the gospel, the importance of scripture memorization, and making time for others even when life is hard and even when it gets busy.
 

 
SHOW QUOTES:

“The time that the Lord gives us in this life [is not infinite], and he wants to use us. And he needs us…it’s a very strange strategy, really, that he’s relying on us because…I’ve goofed this up many times down through the years.

“It’s a dream for a lot of people to work in the realm of sports and professional sports. But many times that dream is not what they thought it was going to be, and it can be a very difficult profession to be in… it can get pretty intense. There’s a lot of frank discussions about shattered dreams.” “What God has taught me is to have that heart to be open. And even though you’re [feeling like] oh man, I got ten things to do, and I got a deadline tomorrow… I’ve got to stop, freeze, and just be available. And sometimes that leads to some very powerful situations.”

“I keep a prayer journal and sermon notes…what I keep is 17 years prior…because when I do that I see how God has been faithful in the things that I’ve forgotten about.”
Gender Dysphoria Issues | Dr. Julia Sadusky | POD 003

Gender Dysphoria Issues | Dr. Julia Sadusky | POD 003

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Hosts & Guests

Dr. Julia Sadusky

Paul Brandes – Host

Bill Gorman – Co-Host

Show Notes

We hope to challenge you to think deeply about what it means to follow Jesus in all of life. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Julia Sadusky to talk about gender identity and gender dysphoria and how the local church can be a place of hope. As followers of Jesus, it is our desire to respond with grace and love to the many cultural shifts relating to gender identity while remaining tethered to a biblical foundation. Our special guest is Dr. Julia Sadusky joining hosts Paul Brandes and Bill Gorman.
 
This is Episode 3 of theFormed.life Podcast, where we hope to challenge you in thinking deeply about what it means to follow Jesus in all of life.
 
 

 

 

At Christ Community, we affirm with our Lord Jesus and believers throughout history that “from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’” (Mark 10:6; Genesis 1:27). There is a good design to our bodies being sexed, and a beautiful diversity of women and men contributing in genuinely complementary ways in the church, the family, and broader society.

And yet, how do we respond both to a culture that is increasingly opposed to biblical truth and to individuals who are image-bearers of God navigating difficult situations related to their gender identity?

Facing these complex questions can be daunting, but humble listening and learning is always a good next step. This is why, with the encouragement of our Elder Leadership Team, we invited Dr. Sadusky to join us. She is deeply rooted in an orthodox view of the authority of Scripture and holds to a biblical understanding of gender and sexuality. And she models beautifully how to think clearly and love compassionately.

How to Rediscover Lost Values with MLK

How to Rediscover Lost Values with MLK

One of my personal traditions is to listen to my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr speech each year on MLK weekend. While not as popular as “I Have a Dream” or “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” my favorite speech, entitled “Rediscovering Lost Values,” embodies the compelling moral vision of King and the broader African-American church that we celebrate each year on MLK day. This speech was actually a sermon delivered at Detroit’s Second Baptist Church before the Montgomery bus boycott that elevated him to a national stage. It reminds us that before King became the renowned activist and public persona, he was a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was his deep faith commitments of the latter that propelled him to become the former. The sermon’s correct diagnosis and searing critique of modern western culture’s moral relativism, in both theory and practice, is as relevant today in 2023 as it was in 1954.

King begins by asserting that, as modern people, “the means by which we live, have outdistanced the spiritual ends for which we live.” The profound problems we face in our world today cannot be solved by more information or more economic resources, both of which we have more of today than any society in human history. No, the problem lies within the hearts and souls of human beings and results from leaving behind the value of there being a God-given moral fabric to our universe. King likens this to the story of Joseph and Mary accidentally leaving behind Jesus as a boy in Jerusalem while returning to Nazareth (Luke 2:41-52). If we are to move forward as a society, we must go back to rediscover these foundational spiritual and moral values.

The problem is that we have forgotten that God created our universe with moral laws every bit as true as physical laws. Even if you don’t understand Newtonian physics, you know that if you jump off a tall building the law of gravity means that you will fall to the ground and die. Certain things are right and certain things are wrong, in every time, place, and culture, precisely because God made it so… 

It’s wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong! It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China! It was wrong in two thousand BC, and it’s wrong in nineteen fifty-four AD! It always has been wrong, and it always will be wrong! It’s wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it. It’s wrong! It always will be wrong! And it always has been wrong. It’s wrong in every age, and it’s wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. 

Yet, King points out, we think we can disobey God’s moral laws and not face the consequences. He says that we live by an 11th commandment that supersedes the other 10… “Thou shalt not get caught.” You can break any command you want, so long as you don’t get caught and face negative consequences for it. We have deceived ourselves and forgotten the biblical truth that “You shall reap what you sow” (Galatians 6:7). This is the result of forgetting the moral foundation of the universe, and the God who upholds it.

At this point you may be amening just like the congregation at Detroit Second Baptist back in 1954. This is when King shifts the focus from our broader culture to the church. He observes that even believers can unintentionally forget God and leave him behind, just like Jesus’ parents accidentally forgot him back in Jerusalem on their way back to Nazareth. It is easy for Christians to “pay lip service to God and not life service.” We create false gods out of materialism or political ideologies that affirm us and how we want to live, and we use those idols to distract ourselves from the real God of Scripture who places moral demands on us and holds us accountable. 

All too often, Christians are passionate about either personal holiness or communal justice, while neglecting the other. King and others in the African-American Christian tradition show us there is a strong moral foundation that should lead to both. There is much the broader church can learn from them. We should seek to know the God who created this moral universe, and follow him by his grace.

This MLK weekend, I encourage you to take some time to read or listen to one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons. Let’s remind ourselves of the moral foundation of God’s created order, and how we follow the God who upholds it.

 

More Resources:

Rediscovering Lost Values