What does the Bible say about the environment? - Week 2

(This week we continue our brief review of what Scripture teaches us regarding Christian’s relationship with the environment, see last week’s article).

Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, and told to ‘work & take care of Gdn’ (see Genesis 2.15). ‘Work’ is the Hebrew word ‘Abad’ which means to ‘dress, serve or to cultivate’ The word for ‘take care’ is ‘Shamar’ which means to ‘protect, attend to, watch over it’.

We are meant to serve and protect God’s creation. This real inconvenient (and Biblical) truth! God is one who serves, & we are made in his image.

If we move on in Scripture, we read in Genesis 9, after the flood, comes what is called the Noahic Covenant where no less than 8 times God tells Noah, ‘My covenant is with you and all creation, all the earth’.

Then later in Exodus, we learn that men, women AND livestock were all part of God’s liberating action from Egypt. Both the people and the animals were treated as slaved, working seven days a week, and God was deeply concerned that the animals were freed from this bondage as well.

Indeed the very Sabbath command includes animals – the people of Israel were commanded by God to allow them to rest. In fact, the whole principle of the Sabbath year also includes the environment where the people were commanded to allow their fields to lie fallow for a year (the fields could also ‘rest’ from their labours).

Furthermore, the whole Promised Land concept involves evocative images that convey God’s delight in creation – for it was a land flowing with ‘milk and honey’. Then, throughout the Psalms and Prophets there are constant references to mighty & glorious works of God through nature.

As we move into the New Testament, we learn from Roman’s 8 that the WHOLE of creation is groaning as in pains of childbirth, awaiting redemption and healing from God.

Jesus’ saving mandate includes creation! At our creation, we were commanded by God to love, care for and protect creation & this command is emphasised and heightened through Christ, who is as Colossians 1 tells us the ‘image of God’ and the ‘instrument’ of creation.

After his Baptism and before his ministry started, Jesus retreated into the wilderness. It was there that his calling was made clear. Then the Bible returns to a Garden theme for it was in a garden that Jesus was resurrected. After all a garden was the backdrop for the Fall of humanity, so it was more than fitting to first announce in the splendour a garden that Jesus had conquered sin and death.

The final image I want to bring to you is from Revelations 21.1 which speaks of ‘a new heaven and new earth’ coming down old earth. The language used is not to say the old will be annihilated but rather restored, redeemed and reconciled.

I am really sorry that I couldn’t spend more time on this, but I do hope you have gained some sense of the sheer scope of the Biblical narrative which depicts God’s concern and love 4 all creation and our role as God’s servants to be servants of all.

Christians should deeply care for and respect creation not just because it is the trendy thing to do, but because God commands us to.

What Does Scripture Say About Caring for the Environment?

The environment. This has become a ‘hot’ topic (if you will excuse the pun) over the last few years with movies like Al Gore’s ‘The Inconvenient Truth’ and ‘The 11th Hour’ popularising this it.

There has been some reaction against this with some claiming it is nothing but the product of silly left wing politics. Well, in case you were wondering, there is irrefutable evidence for global warming in our attached picture!

In this first edition of God is Green, we are not going to look at what Al Gore thinks about the environment, or what other hot-shot celebrities or famous scientists have to say. This is because the very foundation of Christian thought concerning environmental issues should be founded in what the Bible says. The real question we need to begin with is what does God think about all this?

For you see, for anyone who follows God, this is not just a political issue but a theological one. This means that what God thinks about the environment becomes one the most important questions we could ask.

Over the next two weeks I will concentrate on giving you a brief overview of Scripture and creation. After that we will invite a young environmental scientist who is a Christian to give us some practical advice and guidance.

In 1967, the ecologist Lyn White published an article blaming the environmental crisis on the Christian view of creation. Perhaps that is the reason why Christians have spent so long sulking on the outskirts of these issues, but I would like to contend that the real problem is NOT what the Bible says about creation, but rather how Christians have sometimes interpreted the Bible.

Right at beginning of our Scriptures, we learn that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos and then began to create, which was a process of bringing order 2 the chaos. At each stage of creation, God stopped to declare it ‘as good’, while on the sixth day, God surveyed all he had made and then said that is was ‘very good’.

The problem of interpretation comes in texts such Gen 1. 27-28; where humanity was given the mandate to rule over the rest of creation. We have totally misunderstood what God meant by that. For how does God rule? With an iron fist? As a dictator? Does God strip us of all our value, does he use us, abuse us and then cast us aside?

No, the essential idea behind the creation mandate is that we are meant to take responsibility, to use our brains and opposable thumbs to care for and protect the environment. We were put in charge of it, it wasn’t given to us, we are stewards looking after something that is NOT ours.

Next week we will continue to unfold the larger Scriptural story concerning our relationship with the rest of creation.

Caring for creation

Climate change is one of the hottest topics world-wide and generates tremondous debate and difference of opinion. Many churches and denominations are encouraging Christians to get to grips with this debate, and also to begin living in a way that expresses care and respect for God's creation. With this in mind, CruxMobi will be asking a panel of experts to regularly write this feature as a way of both educating and encouraging us.