Welcome to another week on Things Unseen.

Perhaps like me you have a fairly eclectic taste in music.

Often that's related to our upbringing, and I know it can be a very generational thing.

I was actually slow to appreciate what everyone calls classical music.

But I remember one of the first pieces I enjoyed was pictures at an exhibition,

but the Russian composer Modest Muzorski.

It's a suite of ten piano pieces with a recurring melody

that conveys this sense of walking from one picture to another.

Maybe you've heard Ravel's adaptation of it for a full orchestra.

It's a clever idea, actually,

to try to convey the theme of the picture through music,

because it makes an appeal to the imagination.

The reason all this comes to mind this week is not to encourage you to listen to Muzorski,

but as a lead-in to a different set of pictures.

Pictures the Bible use is that appeal to our imagination and help us to see what God intends

the church to be.

I have a book at home entitled Images of the Church by an American scholar.

And if I remember correctly, he suggests there are actually over 90 images or pictures of the

church to be found in the New Testament.

I think actually that's squeezing out every last drop of juice a bit, but certainly there

are several pictures in the New Testament that help us to admire and meditate on the wonder of the church.

What picture first comes to your mind?

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