“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” ~ Ephesians 2:10
Similar to Tuesday’s post, this verse doesn’t need a lot of explanation on the surface. We get the word picture: God makes us, and He makes us for good works that He has prepared for us. Not a hard concept.
Whenever I hear “workmanship,” I always think of carpentry work. I’m not exactly sure why, unless it’s because Jesus was a carpenter. So, I imagine being made into a table, or chairs, or maybe even an ornately carved fireplace. Something practical and useful; something that can be a thing of beauty, but doesn’t have to be.
However, in my Bible study in college, my friend pointed out something about this verse that completely changed how I viewed it: the actual word used for “workmanship” is poiēma[1] – the root of our word for “poem.”[2]
Poems in the Mind of the Ancients
That’s right, you are God’s poem. When we think of poetry, we generally think of beautiful words, some of which we struggle to understand, some of which don’t seem to apply to us, and some of which are just silly. We also may think of angsty and depressing fellows, such as Edgar Allan Poe or Lord Byron.
However, in the mind of the ancients, this would not have been the case. For them, they would have thought of one man, Homer, and his “poems” the Iliad and the Odyssey.
The Iliad and the Odyssey (but particularly the Iliad), are astounding in their breadth of life and humanity. They are very violent, showing (with accuracy) how brutal life can be. However, Homer’s epics, and the stories they represent, are also full of love and hate, betrayal and forgiveness, despair and redemption.
How This Applies to Us
Those are words we could apply to the epic of God’s story, too. God’s epic poem is full of love in the face of hate, betrayal and then unimaginable forgiveness, and despair turned to joy at redemption.
When Paul says that we – as Christians – are God’s poiēma, he is evoking all of this. He is evoking a breath-taking, wondrous journey. It isn’t always an easy journey, but it’s full of the epic-love and grace of Jesus Christ.
But there’s more! We are God’s poem, created in Christ Jesus. It reminds me of Genesis, when God speaks the world into being, through Christ, by whom “all things were created” (Col. 1:16). Like the Genesis creation, God speaks us – His poem – into being. What’s more, the ancient “poems” would have had a cadence to them – they would have been sung. It reminds me of the part of The Magician’s Nephew when Aslan sings creation into being. God is singing your story, which was created in Christ Jesus.
Why does God do this? As the verse says, so we may do the good works He has prepared for us.
But how exactly does a poem, even a poem created in Christ Jesus, do good works?
A “poem” does good works by telling the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I hope you don’t miss the beauty of this verse. As a Christian, you are a beautifully crafted, epic poem telling of God’s good work in your life. You were created to sing the story of Jesus Christ.
So go! Sing your story – the story of the Gospel as God’s poiēma.
Sources
[1] “Poiēma,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed November 28, 2017 https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4161&t=NASB
[2] “Poem,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary, accessed November 28, 2017 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poem?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld
