Over the next 4 posts, I’ll be expounding what I believe are the foundations of the ministry of Full of Eyes. Though God Himself is, of course, the foundation of all things, we’re going to start this discussion by looking to the Word of God. This is because even our understanding of God is derived from His Word, therefore we have to get it right before we move on to anything else.
The Foundations of Full of Eyes – I
The Primacy of God’s Word
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:26-27
Were it not for the revelatory light of scripture, the human race would be like a colony of blind men groping through the caverns of their own insight and imagination (Is. 50:11). In the Bible God banishes our uncertainties, lays bare the inner workings of our hearts, and reveals Himself and His world in perfect truth. The Bible alone is the authoritative, infallible revelation of God and His Christ to this post-apostolic age, therefore all true knowledge of reality must begin with the foundation of Scripture.
Where else, in the whole attainable universe, does God Almighty speak to human beings in their language? Where else is the character of God and of man so faithfully expounded? Where else is the grand design of God for all things and the pride-humbling splendor of His beauty so clearly proclaimed? And where else can the human heart turn to find a remedy for guilt that will not be proven false one second after death? Only in the Bible. In the Bible we read propositions and promises spoken with the same authority that currently holds the universe in existence (2 Tim. 3:16; Heb.1:3) and if we would know God rightly, we must begin, continue, and end within its pages.
Therefore, this short survey of the formative theological foundations for Full of Eyes begins with the strongest affirmation possible that the Bible is the supreme authority in this world. There can be no true knowledge of God or ourselves apart from it, and through it, we know both. Our lives and ministries will flourish for God’s glory to the extent that they have been saturated in and conformed to scripture, and they will flounder to the extent that they stray from it. May the Lord ever grant us grace to be a people mastered by His word, and by the Savior of whom it bears witness (John 5:39).
The primacy of God’s Word will affect the art of Full of Eyes in at least these 5 ways:
- We will operate from the assumption that the greatest beauty in all of present reality is the person of God as contained and discovered within Scripture. Therefore we will seek Him there and endeavor to faithfully communicate what we have seen of Him.
- Our understanding of God and of His Only Son is true to the extent that it is Biblical. Therefore, our art will strive to present the One True God in Jesus Christ, not as we “feel” Him to be, but as He is revealed in scripture.
- We will strive for all of our art to be passed through the “sieve” of Biblical teaching. That is to say, our art will not affirm what is not affirmed in scripture, nor will it deny what is affirmed therein.
- We will use images and symbolism that are familiar to Scripture and seek to use them as they are employed in Scripture.
- We will operate from the assumption that the Word of God is the means by which the Spirit chiefly convicts and transforms the hearts of humanity. Therefore, wherever possible, we will communicate the very words of Scripture in our art.
