Words or pictures?

Do you think mainly in words or in pictures?

Some folk claim to be visual thinkers, while others respond better to the spoken or written word. Where religious practice is concerned, visual thinkers reckon that churches focusing mainly on words may not be for them. I once knew a man who converted to Roman Catholicism because others convinced him that he was a "visual thinker". He was led to believe that the spoken word was of little help to him. Only visual drama and imagery would touch his heart. The ancient churches have long provided this, because most of their early followers could not read. Pictures on the walls, statues, ornate clothes and moments of theatre in the liturgy spoke volumes to them. In the eyes of many, they still capture the imagination today.

Some might consider worship in our Reformed churches too wordy and intellectual. We have an answer for that. If our communication were to become all pictures without real depth, much important doctrine would be lost and Christians would fall into gross error by default. Look how the central gospel truth of Justification by Faith – that we are put right with God first and foremost not by good deeds but by faith in Christ as Saviour – was almost lost sight of by the time of the Protestant Reformation!

At the moment, much of my preaching and teaching is based on the book of the prophet Isaiah. I have tended to fight shy of him in the past. There are a lot of words in Isaiah. 66 chapters’ worth, in fact. Enough to exhaust any congregation if you present the book in the wrong way. Yet those words paint amazing pictures. How about the Song of the Vineyard in chapter 5, where God laments that His people are like a vineyard that produces only bad grapes? As the tenderly caring vineyard owner, He is heartbroken to see such a poor return for His pains. Or what of Isaiah 53 and the blow-by-blow sketch in words of the agonising death of our precious Saviour, visualised even though He would not arrive on earth for 700 more years? Or God the Judge and Saviour “treading the winepress alone” in Isaiah 63?

Significantly, the book of Isaiah starts like this: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem ...” (Isaiah 1:1, ESV).

Eugene Peterson, pastor, scholar, author and poet, procuced in 2002 a popular paraphrase of the Bible called The Message, which has had widespread currency and acclaim. He likes to use the word “Message” in his rendering wherever he can. But he is glad to accept that the message of Isaiah is visionary, not just verbal: “For Isaiah, words are watercolors and melodies and chisels to make truth and beauty and goodness. Or, as the case may be, hammers and swords and scalpels to unmake sin and guilt and rebellion. Isaiah does not merely convey information. He creates vision, delivers revelation, arouses belief. He is a poet in the most fundamental sense – a maker, making God present and that presence urgent. Isaiah is the supreme poet-prophet to come out of the Hebrew people.”

For Peterson, the whole book of Isaiah is a Salvation Symphony in three movements, Judgment (chapters 1-39), Comfort (chapters 40-55) and Hope (56-66), with the Saviour God transforming men and women in the furnace of Holiness. We do well not to dismiss the visual and visionary impact of the word pictures in the Bible. Furthermore, our most devout and eminent hymn writers have offered us their own powerful word pictures to sing about and to ponder:

See, from His head, His hands, His feet

sorrow and love flow mingled down;

did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Isaac Watts, 1674-1748

Pictures serve to illustrate. But, for digging deeper, give me every time the sheer power of words inspired by the living God.