Observing what’s not said is definitely an art and not a science, so you need to use common sense. Identify what you might expect from a passage. Then make sure to observe how (and whether) the text subverts those expectations to sharpen its argument. The biblical authors are constantly working to subvert our expectations so they might better persuade us to trust the Lord and seek first his kingdom.

We’ve mentioned it a thousand times: When we observe a passage of the Bible, we’re trying to figure out what it says. However, sometimes we won’t fully grasp what it says without first observing what it doesn’t say. Ryan has made this point in two recent posts with respect to characters’ names. But what’s not said applies to many other types of observation as well. Here are three examples.
Example #1: Luke 15:11-32
The parable commonly known as “The Prodigal Son” is really about Two Brothers. We’re told of the bad choices of the younger son (Luke 15:12-16), and his risky decision to come back home (Luke 15:17-19). We’re told about what happened upon his return (father runs to meet him, throws a party, etc., in Luke 15:20-24).
Then we’re told of the bad attitude and choices of the older son (Luke 15:25-30). We hear the father’s appeal to his grumbling son (Luke 15:31-32). But we never find out what he decided or what happened.
The two brothers are parallel to one another. Their stories are parallel. Up to the point where we expect to hear the choice and results of the older son’s decision. But that choice and its results are left unsaid. The parable simply ends on a cliffhanger.
What is the point of the omission? Jesus lets the end of the story play itself out in the response of the Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling (Luke 15:2). Luke 13-14 was all about the feast and joy of the kingdom of God. Will these grumbling scribes and Pharisees enter? Will those who are saved be few (Luke 13:23)?
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‌As you continue to pursue holiness and Christlikeness, don’t simply strive to acquire theological knowledge alone, but let your love abound more and more, with knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

One of the last short stories C. S. Lewis wrote was a revision of one of his first stories. It was a short story he called, “Light.” In the story a man named Robin, who was born blind, has recently had his sight restored through surgery. Robin finds himself quite disappointed with his restored sight, however, because he really wants to see that thing called “light” that he has heard so much about, and yet, while his wife and others insist that light is all around him, he can’t see light. Weeks of being able to see but not being able to see light leads Robin to despair and ultimately death. Of course, Robin’s problem, and even the problem of his wife and others who could not manage to help him, was that light is not something we see; light is something by which we see.
Lewis’s story is ultimately about the nature of human knowing, but it also illustrates well, I think, how we often approach the subject of beauty. In our post-Enlightenment era, beauty is something we look at; it is a subject we talk about; it is, perhaps, something we ought to learn to appreciate and enjoy.
However, as with light in Lewis’s story, beauty is not merely something to think about, to look at, and to simply recognize or even delight in, but rather beauty is what we come to know God and his world through. Or, to put it another way, beauty is not simply a category that stands alongside truth and goodness; rather, beauty is the means through which we come to really know what is true and good.
Transcendent Beauty
One of the most important, foundational principles of a robustly Christian philosophy is affirmation of absolute truth, goodness, and beauty and the fundamental part each of these principles play in truly knowing God and his world.
Belief in transcendent principles is rooted in a conviction that God is the source, sustainer, and end of all things. The Bible clearly proclaims that God is self-existent and self-sustaining, and all things come from him (Rom. 11:36). Everything that is true is so because God is Truth. Everything that is good is so because God is Good. And everything that is beautiful is so because God is Beauty. There are no such things as brute facts apart from God; they are facts because God determined them to be so. There are no such things as moral standards that are merely conceived out of convention apart from God; actions are moral or immoral because God says they are. And in the same way, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder; something is beautiful when it reflects God who is Beauty.
With this in mind, Christians as image-bearers of God must be committed to thinking God’s thoughts after him, to behaving in certain ways that conform to God’s moral will, and to loving those things that God calls lovely. Thoroughly Christian living is therefore concerned with orthodoxy—right belief, orthopraxy—right behavior, and orthopathy—right loves.
And yet the realm of orthopathy—right loving—is often missing from even the most theologically robust churches. We are all about rigorous theology, and we recognize our goal of cultivating thoroughly Christian values in every area of life, but do we recognize beauty as the essential means through which this will happen?
The Aesthetics of Scripture
The primary, fundamental reason we ought to recognize the significance of beauty as a central means through which our loves are shaped and through which we really come to know God and his world is that the Bible itself is God’s truth communicated in beautiful forms. God’s Word is “more than divine data.”1 Instead, God’s revelation of truth and goodness comes to us in various aesthetic forms such as “narratives, proverbs, poems, hymns, and oratory whose artistic tools include allegory, metaphor, symbolism, satire, and irony.”2
These aesthetic forms are essential to the truth itself since God’s inspired Word is exactly the best way that truth could be presented. Clyde S. Kilby observes, “The Bible comes to us in an artistic form which is often sublime, rather than as a document of practical, expository prose, strict in outline like a textbook.” He asserts that these aesthetic forms are not merely decorative but part of the essential presentation of the Bible’s truth: “We do not have truth and beauty, or truth decorated with beauty, or truth illustrated by the beautiful phrase, or truth in a ‘beautiful setting.’ Truth and beauty are in the Scriptures, as indeed they must always be, an inseparable unity.”3
To put it another way—truth, goodness, and beauty, are three strands of a single cord that cannot be separated if we desire to truly know God and his world.
I am afraid that most Christians do not recognize this, and this is evidenced at very least by the fact that many Christians are afraid to affirm and defend absolute beauty in the same way we do absolute truth and morality. We have bought into the modernist idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the postmodern multicultural agenda that argues art is merely neutral contextualization of a given civilization. We still view beauty and the arts as means to the end of making truth interesting instead of as ends in themselves. We view beauty as something to see rather than something by which we see.
Looking Through
I phrase it that way specifically because again, often when we consider aesthetics, it becomes something we talk about and think about. Talking about, thinking about, and looking at beauty are all good as far as they go, but what I am calling the tools of loving—that which shapes our loves and cultivates virtue in us—is not something to look at but rather what we see through.
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If God never blessed us again, we could continue to praise Him for Who He is – God the Creator of heaven and earth, the Everlasting One, God Almighty, or Father of lights.  His character remains constant and always worthy of praise – holy, righteous, just, loving, patient, and merciful.

The Scriptures abound with plaudits of praise to God.  Praise is the essence of worship.  There can be no worship service without praise.  Whenever any people of God stray from Him, their patterns of worship change.  No longer is He the object of worship or adoration; rather they begin to worship, whether formally or informally, false gods.  The false gods could be idols carved in wood or stone or they could be ideologies or philosophies of life carved with words.  The result is God is no longer recognized for Who He is or what He does.
Throughout Church history, there have been doxologies (hymns of praise to God) written to help Christians verbalize their praises to God in song.  Best known to us is a translation of one written in the sixteenth century by Louis Bourgeois, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow,” or “Old 100th.”  Louis Bourgeois was the master of choristers in Geneva and was primarily responsible for the musical portions in the Geneva Psalter.  My French hymnal is replete with hymns attributed to him.
Another well-known or favorite doxology is, “All Creatures of Our God and King.”  This doxology was written in the twelfth century by Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Little brothers or Friars Minor.  It is a beautiful example of a call to all creation, animate and inanimate, to render praise and glory to God.  If the “Hallelujah Chorus” causes us to rise to our feet, “All Creatures of Our God and King” ought to cause us to lift both head and hands in glory to God the Creator, the Eternal One.  It is truly worthy of memorization, freeing us from looking down at our hymnbooks in order to look up to our God!
Thanksgiving is the time of year when thoughts turn to considering our many blessings and expressing thankfulness to God for His bounteous acts of mercy and loving-kindness.  Surely a thankless heart is a cold, insensitive heart.  It is a heart that barely beats and where the pulse of spiritual life is undetected.  Each day affords each and every one of us many opportunities to be thankful to God, for His blessings are innumerable.  Praise encompasses thanksgiving, but thanksgiving is just a portion of praise.  Thanksgiving praises God for what He does or gives.  Praise goes beyond focusing on the acts of God to spotlighting His person and His character.
If God never blessed us again, we could continue to praise Him for Who He is – God the Creator of heaven and earth, the Everlasting One, God Almighty, or Father of lights.  His character remains constant and always worthy of praise – holy, righteous, just, loving, patient, and merciful.
This Thanksgiving Day many will know how to offer thanks, even if it is only for the table spread before them or for the family that is gathered together that day.  However, as Christians, let’s not just tally our thanks nor tarry at thanksgiving.  Let’s go beyond what the world can do because we know Him and Who He is.  Let’s pursue praise and devote our doxologies of praise to Him who is worthy of worship.
From time to time, we enjoy either singing or hearing a hymn with a descant.  The descant is a melody or counterpoint sung above the simple melody, usually by sopranos.  As the descant rises distinctively above the simple melody, so praise rises above simple thanksgiving.
“Now Thank We All Our God” may be a favorite American Thanksgiving hymn, but “Great is the Lord and Greatly to be Praised” is an age-old admonition.  Let’s not waste the centuries-proven talents of a Louis Bourgeois or a Francis of Assisi, as well as others like them.  Let’s join them and centuries of Christians in praising God for Who He is with our doxologies of praise!  May God be pleased as we all – soprano, alto, tenor, and bass – join together singing the indelible descant of praise.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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