The example of the Bible confirms the importance of [literature]. If the message of the Bible were all that mattered, there would have been no good reason for biblical poets to put their utterances into intricately patterned verse form, or for biblical storytellers to compose masterfully compact and carefully designed stories. In God's economy, the writers of the Bible did not have something better to do with their time and ability than to be artistic to the glory of God. The writer of Ecclesiastes speaks for other biblical authors as well as for himself when he tells us that he arranged his material "with great care," and that he "sought to find pleasing words" (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10, RSV), or "words of delight" (12:10, ESV).

Leland Ryken, "Thinking Christianly about Literature"