| Our honor is also our task in stewardship of the Earth |
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| Sept. 9, 2007
Background Scripture: Genesis 1:26-2:3
Devotional Reading: Isaiah 40:25-31
The scripture passages in “The Bible Speaks” are not selected by me, but by a committee representing some 40 denominations.
Occasionally, I am frustrated when it selects a passage with which I cannot adequately deal in the space allotted.
This is one of those times. There are only nine verses this week, but there are five topics I want to raise with you.
“Let Us Make Man” – Some people detect here in 1:26 a contradiction to the belief in one God. As early as the ancient Persians, however, it was customary for rulers to speak in the plural as “we” instead of “I.” Queen Elizabeth and the Pope are current examples.
Also, while ancient Hebrews passionately believed in but one God, they often perceived Yahweh as having with him a “heavenly host” of subordinate beings.
“In His Own Image” – This statement in Genesis 1:27 does not mean that we look like God, nor that we are of the same essence. It does suggest, however, that some aspects of God’s being are reflected in us – the spiritual powers of thought, communication and self-transcendence.
So, our biophysical characteristics may be descended from primates, but our spiritual inheritance relates us directly to our Creator.
Sabbath blessing
“The Sabbath Day” – The introduction of the Sabbath concept in Genesis is the basis for Sabbath observance in the Ten Commandments (Ex. 23:12, Deut. 5:14): “God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had done in creation.” Not that God was “tired” in the human sense, but that the Sabbath helps to establish the essential rhythm of life.
But eventually, it suffered from a stifling legalism. Although Christians made Sunday their Sabbath because Jesus was raised on that day, their Sunday often became as legalistic as the Jewish Sabbath. Unfortunately, because of the legalistic approach, this particular commandment has often been regarded as a restriction, rather than the blessing it is intended to be.
God is not injured by our failure to observe the Sabbath, but we are. Observing it is a vote of faith in the Creator, depending upon Him to provide if we take the Sabbath rest.
When I began as a pastor in a church just outside Harrisburg, Penn., Sunday was still a special day, although not nearly so circumscribed as it had been in eras past. When the local high school announced that its marching band had been invited to Philadelphia to play at one of the NFL Eagles games, I joined other pastors in protesting this invasion of what we regarded as the churches’ domain.
Our protest, of course, was ignored. Little did we realize that as if this one of the Ten Commandments had been repealed, the Sabbath concept would largely disappear from American life.
A world of scarcity
“God’s Abundance” – The image of God’s creation in Genesis is one of abundance: beasts of the earth and cattle (1:25), fish of the sea and birds of the air (1:26), every plant yielding seed and every tree with seed in its fruit (1:29), every green plant for food (1:30): in short, God provides abundantly for His children.
Yet, the world we live in today is often represented as one of scarcity – not enough of everything to go around. But scarcity is a human, not a divine, invention. It is human greed, wastefulness, wretched stewardship and materialism that make God’s earth a place of scarcity; half the world’s population living on less than $2 a day, more than half the world’s children in extreme poverty.
Yet, there would be enough of everything to go around if, in the next two decades, we reduced the world’s military expenditures by as little as five percent.
“Have Dominion” – Genesis 1:26, 27 is often cited to justify the human claim that God commands us to use His creation as we choose. In the act of creation, God brought – and still brings – order out of the chaos and on the human level that is also our God-given task. We have been honored by God with dominion, but let us remember that our honor is also our task.
This farm news was published in the Sept. 5, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
| 9/5/2007 |
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