The judicious reader may appreciate the irony that the beauty of poetry is here defended with the logic of prose. But, just as an awe-inspiring cathedral requires first the laborious quarrying of stones, we may be encouraged all the same to continue. For most people today, however, reading poetry is more like working in a mine than admiring a work of art.

This should not be the Christian’s attitude. Rather, poetry is a necessity as one of the literary genres within Scripture, as a benefit as part of the Christian heritage, and as a delight in the Christian experience. To put it another way, poetry is one of the means given to mankind through which we glorify and enjoy God, as well as enjoy the creation He has so graciously given to us.

Poetry and the Scriptures

We must start with the premise upon which all Reformed Christians agree: God has given the unfathomable gift of His holy Word, and every word in it is God-breathed, the rule of faith and life. Throughout each literary genre of the Scriptures is a unique storehouse of finest gold, each with a different method for surveying the depths of their riches (what is called hermeneutics). The Christian feels this smartingly for the gospels and for the epistles, but this, too, is the often over-looked genius, for instance, of the genealogies: that if they were not in the Scriptures, there would be something missing of infinite value. Thus it is also with the poetry of the Scriptures. God has given a book to His people, and so Christians are inherently a bookish people.

God has given His Word, but the next point brings the argument into focus. Within the gift that is the Scriptures, poetry abounds. God spoke “at many times and in many ways” (Heb. 1:1). Like the character of God, poetry is transcendent of that which is common. And like the Sabbath, God has sanctified poetry and so blessed it. If the Christian is to love what God loves, he must delight in stories, in letters, and even in poetry. We love the prophets for their prescience and profundity, but what about for their poetry? Poems pervade the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament.

To aid in understanding and enjoying this treasure, it is helpful to see one of the most definitive characteristics of Hebrew poetry: parallelism. Whether in couplets or triads, parallel lines provide an emphasis, expansion, contrast, or figurative substitution of the first line. We know that when something is repeated, it is meant to captivate our attention, yet we may struggle with this in biblical poetry. Recently, someone asked why the Psalms were so repetitive—why say “He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps. 121:3–4)? Perhaps, at the least, we are being taught a timely lesson forgotten in our own day: there is more than one way to say the same thing. But even more so, through the terse repetition of parallels and figurative imagery, it is as if we may find the tender instruction of our heavenly Father, that in the odes of Scripture, “To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you” (Phil. 3:1).

In the New Testament, poetic sections are less frequent, but still present. The prayer of Mary resembles the Psalms; the declarations of Zechariah and Simeon draw from the wells of the prophet-poets; and, of course, the eschatological songs found in the book of Revelation are explicitly poetic. Whether it is the psalter and the Song of Songs, the books of wisdom (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), the songs punctuating historical narratives, or the prophets of the Old and New Testaments, God decreed that we should know Him and His works—at least in part—through the language of poetry.

Poetry and the Christian Tradition

Though not able to bind the conscience of man, poetry abounds in Christian tradition. To appropriate a common argument from the church fathers, the Christians plundered the Egyptian gold of pa-gan cultures who were eventually conquered and converted to Christendom. These great classical works became sources of inspiration for great Christian writers throughout the centuries. From Dante to Donne, Milton to M’Cheyne, or Bernard to Bradstreet, the Christian heritage of faith bears witness to a love for poetry, reflecting the God in whose image we have been made and are being renewed.

As in the conversion of Augustine, the cry tolle lege (Take up and read!) sounds forth to awaken us from our literary slumber to recover and continue in these old paths. To delight in poetry is not, however, without difficulty for the modern reader. Like the proverbial fish who does not know he is wet, we often imbibe the objections of the current tide. Yet, even these can be countered with the Scriptures.

It is sometimes thought that poetry is childish, and a trivial pursuit for the mature mind. And while I would hasten to defend the honor of Mother Goose, I am drowned out by the thundering voice of the Holy Poet: “Dress for action like a man” (Job 38:3). Others cry out that we need more science, less poetry. But before I could provide such persons with a retort, they are met by the shouts of songs surveying the natural sciences: “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps. 104:24). In an age of thought tyranny where everything is first compartmentalized, and then relativized, the Christian finds that our poetry is a jubilant rebellion. For, indeed, a poem is not merely where objective truth, goodness, and beauty congregate, but where they collaborate.

There is one other issue frequently encountered by those who rightly hold a high view of God’s Word. We have, admittedly, a proclivity to read everything as if it were an epistle. But a poem is not to be read in the same way a treatise is to be read. While every person will have literary genres and books he or she prefers, we are not to commit the fallacy that our preference shapes our reading of God’s Word when it should, in fact, be the other way around. Poetry is to be read, understood, and enjoyed as poetry.

Poetry as a Delight

One of the first applications that can be drawn is for the reader to consider the great benefits of understanding biblical poetry, which is necessary for godliness, as well as enjoying common poetry, which, though a matter of liberty, is profitable.

There are five benefits listed here for consideration. First, and most simply, understanding and en-joying poetry helps us, as we have seen, understand and enjoy the Scriptures. Second, a delight in poetry will encourage a deeper delight in public worship. The public worship of God interweaves both prose and poetry in the beauty of holiness. The Psalms are poetry sung, working in complement with the prose of prayer. The sacraments are poetry seen, working in complement with the prose of preaching. Baptism and the Lord’s supper are living poems, enacting out that rhapsodic command to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8).

Third, a thorough catechesis in biblical poetry will refine the Christian’s taste in common poetry, just as how a foundation in biblical narrative forms our palate to savor stories like the ones God tells. Fourth, development in the school of the poets is to mature in the school of wisdom, for the wisdom books of Scripture are books of poetry and to sing the Psalms is to let the wisdom of Christ dwell in us richly. Fifth, the one who delights in poetry in particular is more likely to enjoy life in general, because the mind is being trained to see the many wonders and mysteries in which we are daily immersed.

Having been encouraged with the benefit of poetry, meditate upon Christ as He is presented in the Psalms and the Song of Songs. Ponder the ways of wisdom in Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Heed the warnings of the prophets. As the commandments of God are not burdensome, so we may know that the ways in which God has communicated to us in His Word are all of grace.

Having been trained in the school of the prophet-poets, you may be encouraged all the more to en-joy common poetry as the gift from God that it is. And this is a gift that is best shared—to read and write poems with others. The very first recorded words of mankind were a poem, as Adam beheld his wife and performed, as it were, the concluding couplet of a Hebrew sonnet. It is evident both from the Scriptures, and by the very light of nature, that we are poetic creatures created by the divine Poet, the triune God.