“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” -Proverbs 4:23, ESV
“Witches can be right, giants can be good You decide what's right, you decide what's good.” -Into the Woods
North Raleigh Christian Academy holds to the core value that all truth is God’s truth. This includes the truth found in science, literature, and mathematics. Therefore, the truth found in a cultural artifact such as Into the Woods, while not necessarily written from a Christian viewpoint, still reveals God’s truth. Whether we like the musical or not, we cannot deny that Stephen Sondheim’s work is excellent. By all human standards of excellence, Sondheim is a master of lyrics, music, and storytelling as demonstrated by his multiple Tony, Oscar, and Grammy Awards and even the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Some Christians may use these worldly measures of success as a reason to avoid or deride Sondheim. However, if we truly believe that all truth is God’s truth, then we must acknowledge where Sondheim gets it right as well as where he gets it wrong. That has been the intention of writing these devotionals.
In writing to the church in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul ends with a series of final instructions as he does often in his other letters. Paul writes to this church and all believers that they must “test everything; hold fast what is good” (I Thessalonians 5:21, ESV). Following Paul’s instructions, Christians must align everything, including our art and theatre, with the truth found in Scripture. This includes both the positive and negative examples provided by the characters of Into the Woods.
Like any great work of culture, Into the Woods asks the questions that all of us ponder, invoking the shared human experience. One of these perennial questions that Into the Woods asks is “What is the ultimate source of truth?” According to the lyrics, music, and story of Sondheim’s musical, the ultimate source of truth is oneself. Read carefully the lyrics above. Sondheim appears to place humankind at the heart of determining the truth. As we have already discussed, however, humanity simply cannot bear the weight of being the source of right and wrong. For the Christian thinker and audience member, Sondheim’s lyric should strike a misplaced chord in our hearts and minds. God himself is the ultimate source of truth, and Jesus says just that in the gospel: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, ESV).
The word heart has followed us throughout our journey into this fairy tale forest. Whether described as a desire or a wish, the longings of the heart speak volumes into the world. As Jesus says, “...out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45, ESV). That which resides in your heart will eventually reveal itself. This truth couldn’t be clearer than demonstrated by the examples of all the characters from Sondheim’s Into the Woods.
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