Craftsmanship

Craftsmanship is an attitude and a quality possessed by people enabling them to make things that give pleasure to themselves and others. The work of their hands is the very best that they can do, and the fabricated objects possess both utility and beauty. Those who make things, one of a kind or mass-produced, vast in scale or minute, permanent or temporary, for profit or for pleasure, are going to be judged on their craftsmanship. There are good reasons for this.

God as Craftsperson

One thing we know about God is that God makes things and is pleased with what he makes (Genesis 1:31). Human beings made in the image of God are like God when they make things and are pleased with the results of their labor. If this logic holds, superior craftsmanship is a form of godliness. This is not a trivial observation. To understand the essence of craftsmanship, we must start with our Maker, whose image all craftspeople bear.

Perfect conception and supreme skill are the essence of divine craftsmanship. All who have marveled at the order, complexity and beauty of nature are giving tribute to the Master Craftsman, even when they obtusely credit it to the twin gods of adaptation and genetic mutation. We, as created beings (and fallen ones at that), possess neither God’s omniscience nor his omnipotence. We lack the ability to conceive the perfect object and the skill necessary to craft it—even if we were given the blueprint. Fortunately God works with us, enabling us to be subcreators, or craftspeople, an ability that anthropologists have identified as one of the characteristics that sets humankind apart from the rest of creation.

The Bible and Craftsmanship

The Bible has little to say directly about craftsmanship. We can infer from Proverbs that many of the virtues extolled there are essential for craftsmanship. Diligence, discipline, patience, honesty, discernment, teachability and humility are just some of the qualities for which the true craftsperson strives. These qualities are what we might call the foundational qualities for true craftsmanship. Proverbs 22:29 offers a promise as well:

Do you see a man skilled in his work?
He will serve before kings;
he will not serve before obscure men.

In addition, the spiritual and moral principles of the Gospels and the Epistles are important, but they are conditions of godliness for everyone, whether craftsperson or not. But faith and closeness to God are not conditions of high craftsmanship; craftsmanship is not an exclusive preserve of Christians. Nevertheless, true spirituality ought to give the Christian a “leg up” when it comes to acquiring the foundational qualities of craftsmanship because pride has been put in its place. Unbridled pride found in a “maker-of-things” would almost certainly be unfertile ground for growth in the virtues mentioned in Proverbs and other Wisdom writings.

Inherent in the concept of craftsmanship is the idea of meaningful and joyful work. This is not a simple matter. Solomon confessed,

My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun. (Eccles. 2:10-11)

The craftsperson cannot ultimately be satisfied solely by making beautiful things, for he or she must find a place in the community. So to establish a spirituality of craftsmanship, we must examine the role of “makers-of-things” in the story of God’s redeeming love toward humanity.

Crafting Cities and Idols

Most references to tradespeople and craftspeople in the Bible occur in two contexts: on one hand, building cities and making idols, and on the other hand, building a dwelling place for God and crafting articles of worship. In the former, craftspeople aid and abet humanity’s rebellion against God; in the latter, craftspeople build a place for communion with God. The tower of Babel, a collective task of tradespeople, was the result of a conspiracy to supplant God. From the biblical perspective cities (the spiritual descendants of Babel) and those who build them are always tainted with idolatrous motives. Throughout the prophetic writings all the great cities, centers of human power in the Middle East, are fated to be reduced to rubble by the jealous hand of God. In stark contrast to the city as a monument to human pride are the tabernacle (later the temple) and ultimately the church, each of which successive “structure” is a dwelling place for God. These two opposing spiritual realities provide the biblical context for craftspeople, but they also pose the primary dilemma. Will the hands of the craftsperson make something for the glory of humankind or for the glory of God?

The first craftsperson identified in the Old Testament was Tubal-Cain, who “forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron” (Genesis 4:22). This is all we know of him. But the story of two other crafts-people from the wilderness years of Israel’s journey to the Promised Land is more revelatory. When the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, he also gave him detailed instructions for sacrificial ceremonies and the structure and articles necessary to fulfill those rites. The Lord concludes these instructions with the following:

I have chosen Bezalel . . . and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab . . . to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you. (Exodus 31:2-6)

In fact, Bezalel is the first and only person in the Old Testament who is described as being filled with the Holy Spirit. Others received empowerment for specific situations, but the craftsman Bezalel and his coworkers were especially privileged with divine “in-Spirit-ation” to exercise their skill in the building of the tabernacle. Their empowerment foreshadowed Acts 1:8, where Jesus tells his disciples they will be empowered by the same Spirit to spread the gospel and in so doing to begin to build and craft the church (1 Cor. 3:10-15; Ephes. 2:19-22).

The Spirituality of Craftsmanship

This empowering carried and still carries with it responsibilities, one of which is to keep pure bodies (1 Cor. 6:19). If sexual immorality defiles our bodies, our eyes and hands will be equally violated by employing them for unworthy ends. The wilderness story is clear about this. Before Bezalel and his fellow craftsmen ever received their orders, at the instigation of the people Aaron made an idol in the shape of a golden calf. It was to be the first of many false gods made by misguided craftspeople throughout Israel’s history. These craftspeople prostituted their skills in the making of all manner of idols: everything from simple wood and stone forms to elaborate bejewelled gods of gold and silver. Surely there is a strong note of sarcasm in Israel’s identification of the makers of those idols as skilled craftsmen (Isaiah 40:19-20).

Perversion akin to the Israelites’ continues into the present day. Today nothing is more distinctive of Western society than an ability to craft things. Other cultures have equaled or exceeded ours in poetry, art and literature, but none has come close to ours in the making of such a bewildering array of things. These things have become the idol form of materialism, the underlying philosophy of our culture. The bumper sticker “He who has the most toys when he dies, wins!” is simply declaring the unspoken credo of the dominant religion of our time.

So the turn-of-the-millennium environment presents a special dilemma for Christian craftspeople. How do we remain pure and as dedicated as Bezalel when the products of our employment (to one degree or another) feed the same appetite as Solomon’s?

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure. (Eccles. 2:10)

The making of Communion cups and church furnishings surely cannot define the scope of the Christian craftsperson’s skills.

There is, of course, no simple answer. One of the things we must do is to keep reminding ourselves that our crafting of things is subordinate to the building of the holy temple of the Lord, the body of Christ. It is a great honor for craftspeople to be the metaphor for that greater reality. Our participation in that spiritual crafting is what will keep the metaphor of our material craftsmanship pure and vital.

The other thing we must do is to heed Jesus’ promise “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7). “Walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the carpenter’s son,” is a phrase we accept as a Christian truism, but there is no question that the closer we keep ourselves to Jesus, the easier it will be to define the line between worthy tasks and unworthy tasks that we will not cross (easier, but never easy!).

An important lesson that Jesus can teach the craftsperson is that nothing is merely a means to another end. All things have some value as an end in themselves. Thus Christian craftspeople must always distinguish themselves from those for whom work and wages are simply necessary evils to procure the necessities of life (hopefully with enough left over for pleasure and material gain). Christian craftspeople must be continually asking Jesus whether the objects they are making can be made to the glory of God and, if they can, challenging themselves to craft them to the very best of their “in-Spirit-ed” skill.

Surely there is merit in Solomon’s judgment that there is nothing better for a people than to “find satisfaction in [their] work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God” (Eccles. 2:24). But this hope must be purged of Solomon’s pessimism. In my experience crafting homes, boats and furniture, there is no better way to do that than to emulate the persona of Wisdom in Proverbs 8. Wisdom is at God’s side at the creation of the world, a partner:

I was the craftsman at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
rejoicing in his whole world
and delighting in mankind.
(Proverbs 8:30-31)

This is what it means for the craftsperson to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. True craftsmanship is subcreativity, indeed even cocreativity. That partnership produced the world we live in. Dare we expect some small measure of that divine fulfillment in the things we make?

» See also: Art

» See also: Technology

» See also: Trades

» See also: Work

References and Resources

R. Banks, God the Worker: Journey into the Mind, Heart and Imagination of God (Valley Forge, Penn.: Judson, 1994); E. L. Smith, The Stones of Craft: The Craftsman’s Role in Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981).

—Graeme Smith