Activity

-Therapy (this is where my writing, unfortunately, started – lots of journals)
-Helping people feel better and make some sense out of their lives (love and truth)
-Telling the Gospel, without making the whole world mad at me (just most of the world)
-Ending social isolation (for me and others)
-Informing young people on what the real world is *actually* like, sheltered children…without luring children into evil.

I’m not going to suggest that this should be the purpose for every writer, but I spent years lost feeling like my writing had no worth, so here’s an “official” scriptural purpose for writing, should the real-life bad guys come to get you:

Ephesians 4:14-16

14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Your writing has worth and purpose. These verses are where I got the reasons above.

Therapy: “grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head”.

Love and Truth: “speaking the truth in love”

Telling the Gospel: “growth of the body” What causes the body of Christ to grow? People who accept the Gospel. This is a call for Gospel proclamation.

Ending Social Isolation: “being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part” – People in the body of Christ should be connected to each other, not isolated, and working together. In addition, we’re not witnessing when we are isolated from the world.

Informing Young People: See the entirety of verse 14. In verse 14, we even find a purpose for villains of stories: to display the crafty schemes of the devil so we don’t get taken in by them.

Now this verse is not the only writing purpose in Scripture, but may I add a strong encouragement that your writing purpose should be based in the Scriptures? Consider the parable of the man who built his house on the rock versus the guy who built his house on the sand. Our writing is a proverbial house. If we build our work on God’s truth, it will stand and net eternal rewards. If we build our writing on worldly purposes, those purposes will let us down and our writing will fail.

However, I would recommend going through the exercise as outlined here in yonder post before going for your Bible. That will tell you what your existing purposes in writing are, and not all of them have to be high and esoteric like what I just listed. For example, for one of my stories on another website, the “why” has to do with the “young people informing” reason that I listed, but another is “alpacas are cute.” There is no reason why my admiration of a particular aspect of God’s creation takes away from my story – it adds to it.

Also, you should not flail yourself for having bad purposes for your writing or force yourself to adopt a purpose for your writing that isn’t really yours or doesn’t fit. But here’s the thing: writers will face opposition and criticism, at least in this world. So in order to avoid bowing to the pressure of the world to compromise on our work, it pays to spend the time with God praying through the Scriptures to understand his purpose for your work. With God backing our work, we will withstand the opposition and accomplish his purposes. Without it, our work will not succeed and will be a poor witness.

Anywho, I’ll try to ease myself off this soapbox before I break a leg.