Whether you consider yourself to be artistic or not, you can worship God through art. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, for God sees the heart: “For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have” (2 Corinthians 8:12).

Worship is an offering of ourselves “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1-2). It involves adoration, submission, proclamation, and service, all of which can be done through art.

Stained glass portraying Saint Luke | Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi

Art has played a significant part of Christian service: Consider Handel’s Messiah, the medieval illuminated manuscripts, Milton’s epic Paradise Lost, and the stained glass of the great cathedrals. Even culinary arts are represented during feasts that celebrate Christ’s birth and resurrection—particularly when lamb is served for Easter accompanied by an explanation of Jesus being the Lamb sacrificed for our sins.

Take a look at how the arts played a part in Israel’s worship of God. Here is just a sample.

Art as Worship in the Bible

Performing Art as Worship

Members of three choirs greeted worshipers at the temple’s gates, played music, and sang throughout the temple facility. Men and women alike wrote and sang songs commemorating God’s mighty works. All the people acted important historical events, such as Passover—where families dressed and feasted in the way the Israelites did on the night God freed them from Egyptian slavery—and the Feast of Tabernacles—where they lived in palm booths for a week to reenact the wilderness experience and the entrance to the Promised Land.

Literary Art as Worship

Moses, Miriam, and other men and women in the Bible wrote songs for others to sing so they would remember God’s instructions and mighty deeds. At least one shepherd boy (David) wrote psalms for use in personal worship. Later, worship leaders wrote psalms to be sung by the choirs and recited by the masses. Some wrote histories and testimonies to teach others about God. Church leaders wrote letters to encourage, admonish, and bless.

Culinary Art as Worship

Illuminated manuscript (Genesis) | Wenceslas Bible, 1389, from freechristimages.org

Worship included feasts, the elements of which often symbolized an aspect of God’s care. For example, the spring Passover feast included lamb to represent the Passover Lamb slain that they might live, and unleavened bread signifying the haste with which the people fled Egypt. The summer Feast of Weeks included leavened bread in celebration of the grain harvest God provided in the Promised Land; to the early church it symbolized the falling of the Seed that produced the harvest of the church. The fall Feast of Tabernacles celebrated the year’s final harvest; it also symbolized the Last Day’s harvest of souls.

Visual Art as Worship

At homes, Scripture adorned doorposts and gates, providing teaching opportunities. But where the visual arts really stood out was at the temple. There wood carvings, gold inlays, intricate embroidery, and bronze statues reminded worshipers that this was the temple of the Creator of all in heaven and earth. He was holy and they drew near him through sacrifice. The artistry reminded people who God was so they could worship appropriately.

Why Attempt Art as Worship?

Many of us have enjoyed stained glass windows in cathedrals and Bible stories in plays or movies. But this level of art as worship is beyond the skills of most: We can enjoy it, but not do it.

Still, artistically expressing what we’re learning in Scripture has these benefits:

Deepens our involvement with the passage
Helps us remember the passage’s message
Gives us a means to easily and vibrantly share the passage with others
Is a part of loving the Lord with our whole being: heart, soul, mind, and strength

Art as worship deepens our involvement, helps us remember, & gives us a means to share Click To Tweet

Simple Ideas for Art as Worship

“A tree planted by streams of water” (Psalm 1:3) | Art doesn’t have to be skillful to be meaningful–I enjoyed creating this and was blessed by the layers of meaning that came out

So what are some simple ways to use art as worship? Here are ideas based on Psalm 1, most of which could be used with any Scripture passage:

Performing Arts

Find a musical version of the psalm to play or sing (such as that of Kim Hill)
Act out the psalm as you read or recite it aloud to music (spoken word poetry)
Write music and lyrics based on the psalm

Literary Arts

Write a psalm similar to Psalm 1 based on a particular biblical instruction.
Form this psalm’s message into a poem of any type you like

Culinary Arts

For a picnic, gather chaff (papery seed covering) from plants that have gone to seed (or weeds if you can’t find chaff) and place it on a container. Prepare fresh fruit and place it on another container. Show children or friends the contents of the two containers. As you explain how chaff is good for nothing, toss it in the air and let the wind drive it away (or pour it into the trash if the day is windless). Serve the fruit as you explain how healthy and desirable it is. Explain what Psalm 1 says about our lives being like chaff or well-watered fruit trees.

Clockwise from top: 1. cross stitch in progress; 2. stamped tile; 3. bookmarks; 4. scale as reminder of justice.

Visual Arts

Create a container garden with a small plant pruned like a tree and tiny rocks suggesting a stream
Write part or all of the psalm in calligraphy
Create an art journal: sketch, paint, and affix photos and words from magazines
In a journaling Bible, pick one verse to illuminate in the wide margin
Overlay a verse on top of a photograph of a fruit tree by a river
Create a diorama or sculpture or piece of jewelry
Create fabric art using cross stitch, embroidery, or applique
Turn what you are learning into an artistic expression to encourage others: bookmarks, greeting cards, t-shirt, coaster

“‘A merry heart createth a cheerful countenance’ Proverb 15:13” | My MIL Rae disliked housework so she painted her laundry room in a way that would remind her that her service was worship.

My favorite ways of creating art as worship are writing new psalms based on other psalms, turning a passage into a story or poem, sketching passages, and fabric art. My husband, Clay, has written several encouraging psalms during difficult times. I have a friend who makes coasters from tiles, another who illuminates verses in a journaling Bible, one who made a container garden to illustrate the Parable of the Sower, and still another who makes bookmarks.

What ways have you used art in worship? What might you try?

Adapted from Discovering Hope in the Psalms (Harvest House, 2017)

Whether you consider yourself artistic or not, you can worship God through art Click To Tweet

I used to dislike the Book of Psalms because the psalms kept repeating themselves instead of proceeding point-by-point to a nice conclusion in the first line of the last stanza. After all, essays put the main point in the first sentence of the last paragraph. That’s why we call it a “conclusion.” The psalms didn’t do that.

The problem was that I didn’t understand Psalms’ genre. Not understanding the genre of a book of the Bible leads to not understanding the book. You see, every kind of writing has a genre. We read a newspaper differently than a love note or a poem or a bank deposit slip. We read Philippians differently than Proverbs.

It wasn’t until I learned a bit about Hebrew poetry that I began to not only appreciate, but love, Psalms. Here’s what I needed to know.

To Understand Psalms, Find & Compare Parallel Elements

The psalms are Hebrew poems. A Hebrew poem’s basic unit is a poetic line. Most lines have two segments, though some have three or four, and a few have only one.

Most line segments in Hebrew poetry use parallelism. They often say something similar in multiple ways, giving us different ways to grasp the poet’s meaning. The best part about parallelism is that it translates well, so we don’t have to know Hebrew to enjoy it. God was planning ahead when he helped the Hebrews develop their poetry!

Here are the parallel elements of Psalm 1:1 lined up:

Parallel elements in Psalm 1:1 are below each other

What I thought was pointless redundancy was an invitation to compare the parallel elements to see how they relate. In this case, they intensify, which lead me to ponder how to avoid the progression by not taking the first step.

In the verse above, the parallelism is illustrated like this: ABCD/B’C’D’/B’’C’’D’’. Sometimes the parallel elements are placed in a pattern like this: AB/B’A’. This is called a chiasm (KEY-asm; chi is the Greek name for the letter “X”). In the chart below, the lines drawn between the parallel elements of Psalm 1:2 cross in the shape of an X:

Parallel elements in Psalm 1:2 form an X shape

When I compared the parallel elements in this verse and considered what delight and meditation have to do with each other, I realized that the righteous so delight in the Lord’s instructions that they meditate on it all the time. We naturally think about that which delights us. Delight brings meditation, and meditation increases delight.

By this time I was delighting in parallelism.

To Understand Psalms, Note the Type of Parallelism

Knowing the most common types of parallelism helps us interpret psalms.

In synonymous parallelism, the parallel units use words with similar meanings to express the same idea in a similar way. Both of the above verses use synonymous parallelism, and I showed you how pondering on how the units are similar brings greater understanding of the verse.

In antithetical parallelism, the parallel units use words with opposite meanings to contrast ideas. In Psalm 1:6, “knows” is parallel to “perish”; in the Bible, those whom God knows he watches over and keeps from perishing:

For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

In synthetic parallelism, the parallel units do something else, such as complete a thought. In Psalm 1:4, the first line segment tells us the wicked are not like the well-watered fruit trees from the previous verse, and the second line segment tells us what they are like. That invites us to compare the functions, value, and endurance of fruit trees with that of chaff.

The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away

To Understand Psalms, Find the Theme from Parallelism

It’s not just segments within a poetic line that have parallelism. The entire poem may have parallel elements. Often the first and last words or lines are parallel, in which case they’re the clue to the theme. Psalm 1’s first word is “blessed” and its last word is “perish” (antithetical parallelism); both lines refer to “ways”; therefore, the theme is There is a way that is blessed and a way that perishes.

Sometimes the first and last stanzas are parallel, as are the second and second-to-last stanzas, and so on, forming a chiasm of stanzas in which the center is the psalm’s theme. Psalm 71 is such a chiasm:

Parallel stanzas in Psalm 71 form a chiasm

In other words, I’d been looking for the “conclusion” in the physical conclusion. But in Hebrew poetry, the central point is often in the center! Compare all the stanzas equal distance from the center to understand psalms with chiasm, and you’ll find the poet’s thought progressions.

As you can see …

If you want to understand Psalms, parallelism is the key Click To Tweet

Adapted from Discovering Hope in the Psalms (Harvest House, 2017)

Art as Worship