S150P2 – This precious Earth: God-given charge
Gen 1:28-30
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.
For those without a biblical basis for their belief system, we can expect them to ask certain questions. Why are we here? Where did the Earth come from? What is our role as humans in all of this? Without a proper biblical perspective, the answers to these questions can be whatever we want them to be. There actually are no real answers but only a number of hypotheses and assumptions and opinions based on who knows what. This is the method by which we arrive at wild and crazy ideas about our existence. It is a method of deception that seeks to take from us that which God has given us. It is how we reach twisted ideology which tells us that man is to bow to nature.
There are many types of idolatry out there. When someone worships a specifically named god who is a false god, that is obvious idolatry. Other less obvious forms of idolatry include the worship of self or the worship of our planet and creation. There are those who would place the needs of a bird or a tree above the needs of a human. They do not even view this as an even playing field but expect us to bow to nature. Yet, the story of creation clearly instructs us to subdue Earth. The world was given to mankind to care for and take charge of. The original design was for creation to yield to our authority. Caring for creation certainly is not the same as submitting to it.
If faced with the question of sacrificing the life of an animal or a plant to save a human, or sacrificing the life of a human to save an animal or a plant, I hope the answer is clear to us. In God’s eyes, mankind is not on the same level as the rest of creation. We are the ones who were made in God’s image. We were given charge over Earth; it was not given charge over us. While we are to care for the creation God has given to us, we must be careful not to worship it. That is just another form of idolatry designed to keep us from the Lord. Father, we ask that You bring wisdom and revelation to those who do not yet understand and know our role on Earth and in creation.