Does the Bible Warrant Poetic Effort?

Does the Bible Warrant Poetic Effort?

This book is about the relationship between poetic effort, on the one hand, and perceiving, relishing, and portraying truth and beauty, on the other hand—especially the truth and beauty of God in Christ. By poetic effort, I don’t mean the effort to write poetry. Those who make the greatest poetic effort, as I am using the term, may never write a poem. Only one of the three men in this book is known mainly for his poetry—George Herbert. But all three of them made poetic effort in their Christ-exalting communications. They made poetic effort to see and savor and show the glories of Christ. This effort was the God-dependent intention and exertion to find striking, penetrating, imaginative, and awakening ways of expressing the excellencies they saw. My thesis is that this effort to say beautifully is, perhaps surprisingly, a way of seeing and savoring beauty.

For example, when I hear my daughter singing worship songs in her bedroom, my heart is glad. But when I make the effort to put into suitable words what I love about her song—in a conversation, in a birthday card, in a poem—I hear more, see more, love more. This is how it is with all truth and beauty—the wonders of nature, the stunning turns of redemptive history, and the glories of Christ. In making the poetic effort to find fitting words for these wonders, we see and savor them more deeply and speak them with more power. George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis discovered this long before I did. It has been a profound joy to follow their discovery and use of poetic effort—for Christ and his kingdom.

MY BIGGEST FEAR

My biggest fear in writing this book is that I might contradict the apostle Paul when he says, “Christ did not send me . . . to preach the gospel . . . with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17),¹ or when he said, “I . . . did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:1).² There is a way to speak the gospel—a way of eloquence or cleverness or human wisdom—that nullifies the cross of Christ.

James Denney said, “No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”³ This statement has been my constant companion for the last three decades. I long to show that Christ is mighty to save. I dread nullifying the cross. Therefore, the implicit exhortation throughout this book—to make poetic effort and to find striking ways to speak truth—runs the risk of contradicting Scripture. That is a fearful thing.

INDISPENSABLE WORDS

But the risk is unavoidable. Every person who seeks to commend Christ with words faces this issue. And we cannot do without words in commending Christ. We know him in the words of Scripture, and the Scriptures themselves teach us how indispensable words are in the Christian life. God has designed the world and human beings in such a way that his ultimate and highest aims for humanity come about through human words. For example,

GOD’S DECISIVE WORK

Of course, if that’s all we said about the cause of these great accomplishments (new birth, faith, love, holiness, and salvation), then one might be tempted to think that our giftedness in using words effectively is decisive in bringing these things about. Poetic effort and “wordsmithing” would be paramount. But in fact, our words are not decisive in producing any of these glorious effects. God is.

In other words, all the highest aims of language are decisively the work of God. They are decisively supernatural. And no amount of poetic effort or expertise in the use of words can bring about the great aims of life if God withholds his saving power. Which raises the question: Does, then, the way we use words—does poetic effort—make any difference in whether the great aims of life are achieved?

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOW WE USE WORDS

The New Testament answers yes, at least in regard to the clarity of the words and the attitude of their delivery. The clarity of the words matters: “Pray also for us . . . that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3–4). “If with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air.” (1 Corinthians 14:9, cf. v. 19). And the attitude of the delivery matters. Paul pleads for prayer, “that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel . . . as I ought to speak” (Ephesians 6:18–20).

This leaves us asking: If God is the decisive cause of the aims of our ministry, and yet God wills that the clarity and attitude of our words make a difference in their effectiveness, are there other aspects of language (besides clarity and attitude) that might make a difference in their effectiveness? What about poetic effort? What about the effort to find words and ways of putting them together that is surprising and striking and provocative and awakening and creative and imaginative?

UNAVOIDABLE CHOICES OF WORDS

We are not forcing this question on the text of Scripture. It is not we but God who has made words indispensable for the greatest events of the world—spiritual events with eternal effects. And we cannot just quote Scripture. We must talk about it. Explain it. Exult in it. Defend it. Commend it. Herald it. Pray it. And each time we must choose words. Which words will we choose?

We know that different words have different associations and connotations and effects. We must choose how to put these words together in sentences and paragraphs. We must choose how to say them: softly or loudly, quickly or slowly, pausing or not pausing, tenderly or toughly, emotionally or dispassionately, joyfully or sadly, with gestures or without gestures, walking or standing still, smiling or frowning, looking people in the eye or looking past them. We cannot escape this. We must make these choices. We either do it consciously or unconsciously.

FORWARD WITH THE RISK

So I don’t take this risk of writing this book because I want to, but because I have had to make these choices every day of my Christian life. Of course, I don’t have to write a book about it. But is not writing a book less of a risk? Should I make these choices without reflection? Should I make them without Christian models to help me—like Herbert and Whitefield and Lewis? Should I do the hard work of thinking about these things but not share it with anyone? It seems to me that the risk of each of those options is greater than the risk of writing this book.

So we ask: Did the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2 intend to discourage all poetic effort in commending the truth and beauty of God in Christ? Did he mean that we should make no prayerful, Bible-guided, God-dependent exertion to find striking, penetrating, imaginative, awakening ways of expressing the excellencies of Christ? I don’t think so.⁴ And I have six reasons. The most important is the context of 1 Corinthians itself and what kind of eloquence Paul actually meant to condemn.

1. WHAT KIND OF ELOQUENCE DID PAUL ACTUALLY CONDEMN?

Let’s make our way back into Paul’s mind through a recent book on eloquence by Denis Donoghue, professor of English and American Letters at New York University. In his book On Eloquence, he argues that eloquence is a surprising, impacting style that is an end in itself.

A speech or an essay may be eloquent, but if it is, the eloquence is incidental to its aim. Eloquence, as distinct from rhetoric, has no aim: it is a play of words or other expressive means. . . . The main attribute of eloquence is gratuitousness.⁵

Eloquence does not serve a purpose or an end in action. . . . In rhetoric, one is trying to persuade someone to do something: in eloquence, one is discovering with delight the expressive resources of the means at hand.⁶

I doubt that most people would agree with that definition of eloquence, as if eloquence cannot intentionally stand in the service of a great aim—say the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr. in the cause of civil rights, or the eloquence of Winston Churchill in the cause of British national defense. But here is why Donoghue’s view is important.

The Sophists in Corinth

It expresses the view that was probably behind the “eloquence” in Corinth that Paul wanted no part of. Donoghue agrees with E. M. Cioran that this notion of gratuitous eloquence began with the sophists two thousand years ago.

The sophists were the first to occupy themselves with a meditation upon words, their value, propriety, and function in the conduct of reasoning: the capital step toward the discovery of style, conceived as a goal in itself, as an intrinsic end, was taken [by the sophists].⁷

One of the most compelling books on the background of Paul’s words about eloquence in 1 Corinthians is Bruce Winter’s Philo and Paul among the Sophists. Winter’s argument is that it is precisely the sophists, and their view of eloquence, that form the backdrop of what Paul says about his own speech and how he ministered in Corinth.⁸

So let’s consider briefly Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians to see if he gives us enough clues to show what sort of eloquence he is rejecting. Given my definition of poetic effort (which I would call a kind of eloquence), it is clear to me that in the very act of rejecting Greek eloquence, Paul is making poetic effort. For example, in 1 Corinthians 1:25, he says, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” He cannot be unconscious that it is shocking to say that the gospel is “the foolishness of God” and “the weakness of God.” This risks blasphemy. He could have spared us preachers the work of explaining this daring, over-the-top description of God’s greatest work as foolish and weak. But no! He chose a shocking way to say it. He used irony. He made an effort to select words that would make an impact and force people to wake up and think. That is what I mean by poetic effort. And Paul does it while condemning a certain kind of “eloquence.”

“Not with Words of Eloquent Wisdom”

What then is he condemning? We know from 2 Corinthians 10:10 that Paul’s opponents mocked him for lacking eloquence. They said, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account.” We also know from at least six sources that the sophists were present and influential in Corinth.⁹ Unlike Paul, they put a huge premium on style and form as evidence of education and power and wisdom. They had probably influenced some in the church to admire their kind of eloquence and look for it in Christian teachers. Bruce Winter says, “Paul deliberately adopts an anti-sophistic stance and thus defends his church-planting activities in Corinth against a backdrop of sophistic conventions, perceptions, and categories.”¹⁰

That’s what we find in 1 Corinthians 1:17: “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” So the way Paul is going to oppose the eloquence of the sophists is to show that it empties the cross. Why is that? Why does this view of eloquence empty the cross of power?

Verse 18 gives part of the reason: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The reason the cross can’t fit in with the eloquence of the sophists is that it is folly to them—that is, it is so destructive of human pride that those who aim at human praise through “rhetorically elaborated eloquence”¹¹ and “an elitist educational system”¹² could only see the cross as foolishness. The cross is the place our sin is seen as most horrible and where God’s free grace shines most brightly. Both of these mean we deserve nothing. Therefore, the cross undercuts pride and exalts Christ, not us, and that made it foolish to the sophists.

We see this confirmed in verse 20: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?”—the debater, the man who is so nimble with his tongue that he can take either side and win. He is smooth and clever and verbally agile. Truth and content are not the issue; rhetorical maneuvering is. Paul says at the end of verse 20, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” The wisdom in view is not any deep worldview over against Christianity; it’s the sophistry of using language to win debates and show oneself clever and eloquent and powerful.

So the eloquence Paul is rejecting is not so much any particular language conventions but the exploitation of language to exalt self and belittle or ignore the crucified Lord. Notice the contrast again in chapter 2, verses 1–2: “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The point is: Wherever I meet scribes and debaters who bolster their ego with language jousting and leave the cross in the shadows, I am going to bring it out of the shadows and showcase it totally. I will refuse to play their language games.

The Marks of Good Eloquence

So if there is good eloquence (what I mean by poetic effort) and bad eloquence (what Paul is condemning in 1 Corinthians), we are now seeing two criteria of what is good. The good eloquence humbles itself and exalts Christ. This is most clearly seen in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31. Paul turns the tables on the sophists’ love affair with boasting.¹³

Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

God’s design, both in the cross and in election, is “that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (v. 29). That is the first criterion of good eloquence: It does not come from pride or feed boasting. It does not come from an ego in search of exaltation through clever speech.

Then he continues in verses 30–31,

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

The second design of God, not only in the cross and in election, but also in the sovereign grace of regeneration (“Because of him you are in Christ Jesus” v.30) is that all boasting be boasting in the Lord Jesus—the one who was crucified and raised. “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” So the second criterion of good eloquence is that it exalts Christ—especially the crucified Christ.

Self-Humbling, Christ-Exalting Poetic Effort

So here is the first reason why I don’t think this book contradicts 1 Corinthians 1:17, where Paul says, “Not with words of eloquent wisdom,” or 1 Corinthians 2:1–2, where he says, “[Not] with lofty speech or wisdom.” The point of both these texts is not that all poetic effort (or call it Christ-exalting eloquence) is wrong. The point is that pride-sustaining, self-exalting use of words for a show of human wisdom is incompatible with finding your life and your glory in the cross of Christ. Rather, we should govern our use of words by these double criteria: self-humiliation and Christ-exaltation.

If we put these two criteria in front of all our poetic effort—all our attempts to make an impact through word selection and word arrangement and word delivery—we will be guarded from the kind of eloquence Paul rejected.

2. CHRIST-EXALTING CHRISTIAN ELOQUENCE MAY NOT BE THE REASON THE CROSS IS REJECTED

The second reason I don’t think poetic effort is alien to Christ-exalting, self-humbling communication is this: accusations that eloquence is the problem are sometimes misdirected. This is not proof of the point. It is simply a removal of a misused counterargument.

Benjamin Franklin’s Stumbling Block

In the spring of 1740, George Whitefield was in Philadelphia preaching outdoors to thousands of people. Benjamin Franklin attended most of these messages. Franklin, who did not believe what Whitefield was preaching, commented on these perfected sermons,

His delivery . . . was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse: a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music.¹⁴

This is a fearful thing—to speak for Christ and be praised for our eloquence, not our Christ. But before we jump to the conclusion that Whitefield was neglecting Paul’s counsel not to empty the cross by his eloquence, consider this. I believe there are people who have listened to my own preaching for years without grasping with their hearts what I was saying. They remained spiritually dead to what I was saying in spite of many changes in the manner of preaching—from the simplest to the most complex, from the tenderest to the toughest, from suspenseful story to careful argument. Yet they kept coming back, not because they loved what I said, but because they enjoyed the way I said it. They would tell me so. I have met with them one-on-one, pleaded with them, warned them, rebuked them, prayed over them. Yet, as far as I could tell, they remained blind to “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). I detected no spiritual taste for the truth and beauty of Christ.

I do not believe this was because I had emptied the cross of its power through vain eloquence in all those messages. Rather, I believe it was owing to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:15–16: “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” In other words, the preacher’s vanity and carnal eloquence are not the only stumbling blocks to faith.

Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Stumbling Block of Truth

Herod would one day behead John the Baptist, but he could not stop listening to him: “When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he heard him gladly” (Mark 6:20). Similarly with Jesus himself: “The great throng heard him gladly” (Mark 12:37), but very few understood what he was saying and truly believed. Jesus and John the Baptist were not tickling the ears of kings and people with clever speech or vain eloquence. They were not nullifying the words of Paul. Yet, their speech was “seasoned with salt” (Colossians 4:6) and caused kings and commoners to keep coming back.

Jesus said, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:25–27). Perhaps Jesus would have spoken this over Benjamin Franklin when he refused to believe in the message of George Whitefield. Perhaps Whitefield’s eloquence was not an obstacle to his faith but an excuse of his unbelief, while others found it to be the pathway to the cross.

3. GOD INSPIRED MEN TO

MAKE POETIC EFFORT

The third reason I don’t think the apostle Paul (or any other biblical writer) ruled out poetic effort in the service of Christ is that God himself inspired men to make poetic effort in the writing of Scripture. We have already seen that in the very argument against vain human eloquence, Paul chose words that were highly out of the ordinary to strike an unforgettable blow: “The foolishness of God” and “The weakness of God” (1 Corinthians 1:25). This is the kind of thing I mean by poetic effort. This is a kind of shock-eloquence, and he used it while condemning vain eloquence.

Paul’s Poetic Effort

This wasn’t the only place Paul chose words that were unusual or metaphorical or emotionally impactful when he could have used words less surprising or moving or stabbing. For example,

This is what I mean by poetic effort. All these words are images laden with verbal power and evocative potential. He strove not to be boring. Not to be bland. He aimed to strike blows with feathers (“nursing mother”) and stones (“fool,” “rubbish,” and “filth”).

The Pervasive Poetic Effort of Scripture

Whole books have been written on the stunning richness and variety of language in the Bible. Addressing the question of how much of God’s inspired Word is poetry, Leland Ryken asks and answers,

Given the combined presence of parallelism and a heavy reliance on figurative language, how much of the Bible ranks as poetry? One-third of the Bible is not too high an estimate. Whole books of the Bible are poetic: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon. A majority of Old Testament prophecy is poetic in form. Jesus is one of the most famous poets of the world. Beyond these predominantly poetic parts of the Bible, figurative language appears throughout the Bible, and whenever it does, it requires the same type of analysis given to poetry.¹⁵

In Hosea 12:10, God himself says, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes” (KJV). In other words, God himself claims to have put it in the minds of biblical writers to think of analogies and comparisons and metaphors and similes and symbols and parables—to search out words that point to reality in indirect ways, rather than always describing things directly with the least imaginative words.

The poet John Donne says, “The Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights himself, not only with a propriety, but with a delicacy, and harmony, and melody of language; with height of Metaphors, and other figures, which may work greater impressions upon the Readers.”¹⁶ John Calvin cites Isaiah as an example: “Let us pay attention to the style of Isaiah which is not only pure and elegant, but also is ornamented with high art—from which we may learn that eloquence may be of great service to faith.”¹⁷

Pascal and Paul on Pleasing the Hearer

The point is not that these verbal choices are decisive in bringing about the greatest goals of language. God alone decides that. The point is that, short of these highest goals, God seems to have ordained that typically some uses of language awaken, hold interest, and provoke to thought better than others so that the message might more clearly be seen and considered. Pascal writes,

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way—(1) that those to whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2) that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more willingly to reflection upon it.¹⁸

No doubt, there is eloquence that displeases the hearer, but Pascal’s main point is that arresting and holding the listener (or reader) is a means to other ends. Surely the apostle Paul would have included his speech in the “everything” when he said, “I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 10:33). It is not the pleasing that saves. God saves. But Paul believed acting (and speaking) a certain way could advance that salvation better than other ways. And he believed this, even though God can use any kind of speech he pleases as a means of salvation.

At the merely natural level, we are all dull and are served well when language claps its hands and wakes us up to pay attention. George Eliot in the novel Middlemarch speaks to this through one of her characters,

We do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual. . . . If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.¹⁹

Proverbs and Isaiah for Example

This may be one reason why the Bible is filled with every manner of literary device to add natural impact: acrostics, alliteration, analogies, anthropomorphism, assonance, cadence, chiasmus, consonance, dialogue, hyperbole, irony, metaphor, meter, onomatopoeia, paradox, parallelism, repetition, rhyme, satire, simile—they’re all there, and more. Take a small sampling of these images from Proverbs and Isaiah only. They could be increased hundreds of times.

The Invitation to Join Scripture in Its Poetic Effort

If the poetic effort of the wise man in Proverbs and the prophet Isaiah are not undermining to the spiritual purpose of Scripture to humble pride, point to Christ, waken hope, and lead to faith, then we will not be surprised that it seems God invites us to join him in this creativity of impactful and striking imagery in language. He beckons us with words like these:

To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is! (Proverbs 15:23)

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. (Proverbs 16:21)

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. (Proverbs 25:11)

Like a lame man’s legs, which hang useless, is a proverb in the mouth of fools. (Proverbs 26:7)

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt. (Colossians 4:6)

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17)

In other words, give thought to the aptness and seasonableness and fitness and timing and appropriateness of your words. And make all of them an honor to the name of the Lord Jesus.

4. MANY WHO HAVE MADE POETIC EFFORT HAVE BEEN HUMBLE, OTHERS-ORIENTED PEOPLE

I know that many have been vain and self-exalting in their use of eloquence. If that were not true, Paul would not have written 1 Corinthians 1–4, and I would not be writing this introduction the way I am. Not only have there been such people, but we ourselves are prone to be that way. Pride lurks in every human heart. Christ died for this sin so that we might die to it and live in humble righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). But while we live in this fallen world, we must reckon it to be dead again and again. We must, so to speak, put it to death daily (Luke 9:23; 1 Corinthians 15:31; Colossians 3:5).

George Herbert: Less Than the Least of God’s Mercies

Nevertheless, there have been truly humble persons who have aimed their poetic effort at the benefit of others and not at their self-exaltation. George Herbert, as we will see shortly, was a country pastor whose unpublished poems he offered on his deathbed to his trusted friend Nicholas Ferrar with these words to the courier:

Sir, I pray deliver this little book to my dear brother Ferrar, and tell him he shall find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed betwixt God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom; desire him to read it: and then, if he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul, let it be made public; if not, let him burn it; for I and it are less than the least of God’s mercies.²⁰

Here is the combination of humility (“Less than the least of God’s mercies”) and love for others (“If he can think it may turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul”). Yet I doubt that there ever has been a more accomplished craftsman of poetic language than George Herbert.

Whitefield Humbled by the Doctrine of Election

George Whitefield, the eighteenth-century British evangelist, was the sensation of his day, on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet God led him to biblical views of sin and salvation that cut him down to size. He said,

For my part I cannot see how true humbleness of mind can be attained without a knowledge of [the doctrine of election]; and though I will not say, that every one who denies election is a bad man, yet I will say, with that sweet singer, Mr. Trail, it is a very bad sign: such a one, whoever he be, I think cannot truly know himself; for, if we deny election, we must, partly at least, glory in ourselves; but our redemption is so ordered, that no flesh should glory in the Divine presence; and hence it is, that the pride of man opposes this doctrine, because, according to this doctrine, and no other, “he that glories must glory only in the Lord.”²¹

The testimony of others, especially the lowly, is that he was a man of love. They did not smell the stench of pride or manipulation or abuse in his eloquence. They felt loved. For example, Phillis Wheatley, a black servant girl at age seventeen, wrote a poetic tribute to Whitefield titled,

AN ELEGIAC POEM ON THE DEATH OF THAT CELEBRATED DIVINE, AND EMINENT SERVANT OF JESUS CHRIST, THE LATE REVEREND, AND PIOUS GEORGE WHITEFIELD

It contained these lines:

When his AMERICANS were burden’d sore,

When streets were crimson’d with their guiltless gore!

Unrival’d friendship in his breast now strove:

The fruit thereof was charity and love.²²

She was referring to American blacks. So, at least in her case, the eloquence of the man became not the exaltation of self but the expression of love.

C. S. Lewis’s “Magisterial Humility”

C. S. Lewis was perhaps the most popular apologist for Christianity in the twentieth century. He is certainly the most widely read apologist today from the twentieth century. But Lewis, too, had come to Christ as the center of his world and the Savior of mind and soul and verbal skill. Owen Barfield, who knew him well, describes him as having a “magisterial humility.”²³ I take this to mean that he carried his magisterial knowledge and ability lightly.

Lewis gives an unwitting description of himself when he says that the early Protestants had a “buoyant humility.” “From this buoyant humility, this farewell to the self with all its good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings, all the Protestant doctrines originally sprang. . . . Relief and buoyancy are the characteristic notes.”²⁴ Walter Hooper, his secretary, says,

Although Lewis owned a huge library, he possessed few of his own works. His phenomenal memory recorded almost everything he had read except his own writings—an appealing fault. Often, when I quoted lines from his own poems he would ask who the author was. He was a very great scholar, but no expert in the field of C. S. Lewis.²⁵

One gets the impression that his “omnivorous attentiveness”²⁶ to the world and the people outside him had freed him in a wonderfully healthy way from the kind of self-preoccupation that angles for attention or praise. His poetic effort—whether in fiction or nonfiction—was strewn with imaginative ways of seeing and saying things, but it all seemed to serve others. One of the most striking things he ever said for an Oxford professor of literature was this:

The Christian knows from the outset that the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world: and as for superiority, he knows that the vulgar since they include most of the poor probably include most of his superiors.²⁷

Poetic Effort That Does Not Empty the Cross

The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt. We are capable of taking the most humbling theology and the most humbling experiences and turning them into props for pride. I am sure Herbert, Whitefield, and Lewis fell prey to that temptation. But I don’t believe it was their deepest identity. Their egos had been humbled by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and their hearts had been turned outward toward the world. When they made poetic effort, they did it not to exalt themselves and empty the cross but to see and savor and show the truth and beauty of God—that is, they did it out of love.

5. SAYING NEWLY IS A WAY OF SEEING AND SAVORING NEWLY

A fifth reason I don’t think Paul meant to condemn all poetic effort is that from my own experience poetic effort is not only helpful for others in speaking the glories of Christ but also helpful for me in seeing them and savoring them. This is the real origin of this book. George Herbert was the main inspiration.

Poetic Effort as Fellowship with Christ

In his poem called “Quidditie,” Herbert has these lines about what writing poetry is for him:

It is no office, art, or news;

Nor the Exchange, or busie Hall;

But it is that which while I use

I am with Thee. . . .²⁸

His poems are “that which while I use I am with Thee.” This put into words what I have found to be true for decades. The effort to put the truth of God, and all his ways and works, into fresh language—something that may have never been spoken before—is a way of coming near to God, because of seeing and feeling more suitably. “While I use [that is, while I make poetic effort], I am with Thee.”

Herbert confirmed for me in his experience what has been an indispensable part of my preaching and writing. I don’t mean just the writing of poems but also the writing of sermons and books and letters and most anything else that matters. Every sermon was an opportunity not just to say but to see and savor. Every effort to speak the wonders of the Word of God became a fresh seeing and a fresh savoring. The pressure to prepare a fresh word from God week by week was one of the greatest gifts of my life. The effort to say beautifully was a way of seeing beauty. The effort to put a glimpse of glory into striking or moving words made the glimpse grow. The effort to find worthy words for Christ opened to me more fully the worth of Christ.

I think this is true for everyone. And that is one of the reasons I have written this book.

6. THREE GREAT EXAMPLES: GEORGE HERBERT, GEORGE WHITEFIELD, AND C. S. LEWIS

Finally, I believe that self-humbling, Christ-exalting eloquence—or poetic effort, as I am calling it in this book—is valid and important for Christian living and speaking because the three subjects of this book bear it out in their lives. I commend them to you for your own inspiration and guidance. All three of them, of course, are vastly more gifted than I am and perhaps than you are. Don’t let that put you off. I come nowhere close to the poetic gifting of George Herbert, the dramatic power of George Whitefield, or the imaginative power of C. S. Lewis. But, O, what they have shown me of truth and beauty and how to see them and say them. The glory of Christ is brighter and clearer and sweeter for me because of their poetic effort—the effort to see and savor and speak the glories they have seen in fresh and powerful ways. I thank God for them.

Yes, there is humble, Christ-exalting eloquence. Yes, poetic effort is good. It is not the decisive factor in salvation. God is. But faith and all its fruits come by hearing, and hearing by the Word (Romans 10:17; Galatians 3:5). That Word in the Bible is pervasively eloquent—words are put together in a way to give great impact. And God invites us to create our own fresh phrases for his glory, not ours. And in the mystery of his sovereign grace, he will glorify himself in us and in the hearts of others in spite of and because of the words we have chosen. In that way, he will keep us humble and get all the glory for himself.

¹    John Donne, “Meditation 17” (1623) in The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, ed. Charles M. Coffin (New York: Random House, 1952), 440–41.

²    The NIV 1984 translates 1 Corinthians 1:17, “Not with words of human wisdom”; the NASB, “Not in cleverness of speech”; and the KJV, “Not with wisdom of words.”

³    The NIV translates 1 Corinthians 2:1, “I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom”; the NASB, “I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom”; and the KJV, “[I] came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom.”

⁴    In the following paragraphs, I am drawing heavily on my chapter “Is There Christian Eloquence: Clear Words and the Wonder of the Cross,” in The Power of Words and the Wonder of God, ed. John Piper and Justin Taylor (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 67–80.

⁵    Denis Donoghue, On Eloquence (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 3.

⁶    Ibid., 148.

⁷    Ibid., 136 (emphasis added).

⁸    “The wise, the well born and the powerful epitomized the class from which the sophists came and which the latter helped perpetuate through an elitist educational system which emphasized the art of rhetoric. Given the great sin of the sophistic movement was its boasting . . . Paul made the Jeremiah prohibition against boasting about wisdom, status and achievement a primary text in this critique of the Corinthian sophistic movement.” Bruce Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 253–54. Duane Litfin makes a similar case, arguing that Paul is defining his role as a “herald” over and against the classical “orator” or rhetoric of Corinth: “Both his physical appearance and his speaking itself were deficient, even contemptible, by the sophisticated standards of Greek rhetoric (2 Cor. 10:10). Paul was simply out of his league. These people were accustomed to the euglottia (“beautiful speech”) of orators of the caliber of Favorinus, that paragon of Greek culture whose eloquence was both sophos (“wise”) and potimos (“sweet, pleasant”). [Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 489, 491.] . . . Such a one as this could impress the Corinthians. But by this standard the apostle was an embarrassing figure. Whatever else one could say for him, he was woefully short by the stringent criteria of genuine Greek eloquence. He was simply a layman (idiotes, 2 Cor. 11:6) as a speaker. He appeared to lack the high-octane ability to discover convincing arguments and then sculpt them at will into irresistible phrases. He came far short of the polish and sophistication in word choice, in diction, in voice, in physical charm and self-possession that was indispensable to impress and move a Greco-Roman crowd.” Duane Litfin, “Swallowing Our Pride: An Essay on the Foolishness of Preaching,” in Preach the Word: Essays on Expository Preaching: In Honor of R. Kent Hughes, ed. Leland Ryken and Todd A. Wilson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 120.

⁹    Winter, Philo and Paul, 7–9, gives six sources for our knowledge of the sophist movement in Corinth. He concludes, “There can be no doubt . . . that sophists and their students were prominent in Corinth and played an important role in the life of the city.” Ibid., 140.

¹⁰   Ibid., 141.

¹¹   Ibid., 144n16.

¹²   Ibid., 253.

¹³   “The great sin of the sophistic movement was its boasting.” Ibid.

¹⁴   Harry Stout, The Divine Dramatist (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 104 (emphasis added).

¹⁵   Leland Ryken, “‘I Have Used Similitudes’: The Poetry of the Bible,” Bibliotheca Sacra 147 (July 1990), 259–60.

¹⁶   John Donne, The Sermons of John Donne, ed. George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1953–1962), 6:55.

¹⁷   “Quoted in Calvin and the Bible,” from Selected Shorter Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield, ed. John E. Meeter, vol. 1 (Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1970). Originally from The Presbyterian, (June 30, 1909), 7–8.

¹⁸   Blaise Pascal, Pensées (New York: Dutton, 1958), Kindle Edition.

¹⁹   George Eliot, Middlemarch, chap. 20 (1874), quoted in Donoghue, On Eloquence, 77.

²⁰   Quotation from Izaak Walton, The Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670), quoted in John Tobin, ed., George Herbert: The Complete English Poems (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 310–11.

²¹   Michael A. G. Haykin, ed., The Revived Puritan: The Spirituality of George Whitefield (Dundas, Ontario: Joshua, 2000), 97–98.

²²   Phillis Wheatley, “An Elegiac Poem on the Death of That Celebrated Divine, and Eminent Servant of Jesus Christ, the Late Reverend, and Pious George Whitefield,” (1771), in A Celebration of Women Writers, Mary Mark Ockerbloom, ed., accessed January 13, 2014, http://www.digital.library.upenn.edu/women/wheatley/whitefield/whitefield.html.

²³   C. S. Lewis, Poems, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), vi.

²⁴   C. S. Lewis, Poetry and Prose in the Sixteenth Century: The Oxford History of English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954), 33–34.

²⁵   Lewis, Poems, vii.

²⁶   Alan Jacobs, The Narnian (New York: Harper One, 2005), xxi.

²⁷   C. S. Lewis, “Christianity and Literature” in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967), 10.

²⁸   George Herbert, “The Quidditie,” in Helen Wilcox, ed., The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 254.

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