The Environment, Genesis, and Allegory

I think it's about time I hit up a serious topic, one of the first to hit my brain since deciding to start a ministry. It's a topic near and dear to my heart, the environment. As part of the starting things up I decided to re-read my Bible, and was immediately struck by the relevance of Genesis 1:28-30 (ESV):

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

"Fill the Earth and Subdue it"... this doesn't mean destroy. Subdue means to bring under authority. Any good authority takes responsibility for its charge and keeps it so that it may serve them, and by this the authority acts in service of the subdued. An irresponsible, selfish, or malicious authority destroys its charge for its own selfish and immediate purposes, without realizing that what was subdued can be of service in the long term. Looking at it this way, we see that God has given us the task of being stewards of His creation. God created it, and gave it to us... who are we to ruin it?

Having dominion is the same. No good government, no moral government, exploits its people, and yet we despoil the Lord's creation, our home which He has given us. As a people, it is a task from God to be careful with what he has given us dominion over, to show our Father that we can be responsible. It's like dad's car... the first time you got to drive dad's car, you knew you had to get it back to him in one piece. Sure, you used it, but you replaced what you used (gas) if you were responsible. Maybe a ding or two were forgiven, but largely, you tried not to total the thing. Of course, maybe you did total the car - most dads would have been very angry, maybe even furious, but they didn't stop loving us.

That's the rub... God loves us even though we despoil what He has given us. I think that's a shining example for us all to live by - He is our Lord, he has dominion over us, and our Father has been very good to us. Lets make the Father proud. Recycle and reuse. Rethink they way you use what He has so graciously given. And say thank you. Seriously, thank the Lord for your food, your air, for all the things we have on this earth that sustain us. Do not forget prayer; pray that we can change the world, restore it so that when the next generation of God's children takes the mantle from us His creation is once more worthy of His great name.

Go forth, pray and give thanks, and with a renewed faith we can accomplish anything.