Straight to the Heart: Communicating the Gospel in an Emotionally Driven CultureSample

Beauty

A Heart Culture’s rejection of Christianity is not primarily because of the church’s rational failings but due to a lost attraction to faith. Without beauty, graceless fundamentalism and self-righteous judgmentalism have a tendency to fill the gaps in the Christian message, repelling the culture rather than drawing it in.

We must rediscover the importance of beauty, not as something extra sprinkled into life, but as a foundational value grounded in God’s divine nature. Our heads may try to rationalize away beauty as trivial, but our souls yearn for it, because we yearn for God—the source of beauty. To speak the language of the heart is ultimately to open ourselves to the gift of beauty and to let others know where this priceless treasure can be found.

Beauty is the aroma that derives from the truth and goodness that reflect God’s character and design. The author of Ecclesiastes explores this framework for beauty: “He has made everything beautiful in its time” (Eccl. 3:11a). We encounter biblical beauty when things function as God intended—in that which is true and good.

The Bible is clear that the majesty of creation points to the existence of its Creator and also reveals some of His qualities (Rom. 1:20; Ps. 19:1-4). If Scripture is the narrative structure, then nature adds an aesthetic dimension to deepen that knowledge.

Christians have a vested interest in cultivating the beauty of God’s creation. This is humanity’s first God-given task (Gen. 2:15), and it remains as important as ever. If the beauty of creation points toward God, then Christians should foster beauty in whatever community God has placed them in.

A Heart Culture longs for beauty in an often unpleasant world. Humans always face the temptation to tear down and destroy, only to discover that the resulting rubble offers nothing to satisfy our cravings. Such beauty is available only from above, in the objective reality of God’s goodness and truth.

How can you provide glimpses of the divine Source of all beauty through what you do and the witness of your life?