Artistic Christian


As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: Rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.  Colossians, Chapter 2, verses 6-8.

I’m not to get caught up in counterproductive philosophical discussions with other people regarding my faith.  There have been times when I have done this and I began to doubt my own faith or became uncertain about particular issues.
I have found that when I read the Bible, so many things are clarified for me in a way that no person was able to do.  I know these answers come from God and are not some person or group’s philosophical interpretation of the Bible.  My faith becomes vulnerable when I let other people tell me what I should and shouldn’t believe and how I should do it.
It’s kind of like a painting.  You spend hours creating a painting and it’s just right for you.  You show it to some friends and they tell you that you should change the painting in a particular way.  You show the painting to an artist and he tells you that you should really change these other aspects of the painting.  Lastly, you show the painting to an art teacher.  He tells you that the painting really should be altered in some totally new way.  By the time you ask all of these different people’s advice, you can’t remember why you painted the painting in that particular fashion and what your original goals for the painting were.  Your mind is so muddled by all these interpretations of the right way to paint that the painting doesn’t seem like the same painting you felt excited about in the beginning.
As an artist, I have found it’s much better when I don’t ask for other people’s opinions and I paint for my own pleasure.  As an Artistic Christian, I have found I can’t get involved in other people’s philosophical discussions of how they think religion is supposed to be.  There are millions of different people with millions of different interpretations.  If I get caught up in listening to other people’s opinions, I can get confused and possibly lose my focus on God.  I find it much better to bow out of philosophical discussions and read the Bible on my own and to trust the instincts that God gives me.


Since this is an example of the positive influence God has made on my walk with Christ, this may not reflect the whole meaning of the Bible verses.