Why Poetry Matters

It is difficult 

to get the news from poems

        yet men die miserably every day 

               for lack

of what is found there.

                              -William Carlos Williams, poet

    

The same could be said for Scripture. Often, we come to it looking for a particular gem, but we end up unearthing a jewel of a different sort - a jewel even more exquisite and surprising.

 

The Bible contains five books of poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. And the poems in these books aren't formed with just any old words; they're inspired words. The term "inspired" is ??????????? (theopneustos) in Greek. It literally means "God-breathed" (see 2 Timothy 3:16). God's inspired poetry does offer us news, in a way, but not just any news: life-giving news. The best news we could ever hear. The news that because Jesus willingly gave His life for us and rose from the dead, we can now live as children of light rather than children of darkness. We have the power to cast off what is wretched and miserable about ourselves and shine a little bit of Christ's light into this world.

 

The sad thing about the news we hear in America is that it's usually tragic. Just tonight, I watched a news story on TV about Kelsey Smith, an eighteen-year-old girl who recently graduated from high school. Kelsey was abducted by a young man as she was leaving a Target store. Kelsey's body was later found in a stand of trees near a dirt road in Kansas City. 

 

That young man must not have heard the good news.

 

Yes, men and women die every day for lack of what is found in poetry - and for lack of understanding and putting into practice the truths of Scripture. 

 

Let's care enough to be poets.