The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. – Genesis 2:15
My wife has always taken this passage seriously. She goes through my office trashcan to recycle the paper. She insists on taking her own bags to the grocery store. During the first few years of our marriage I would ask her, “Did God really say‘ take care’ of the Garden?” I thought caring for the environment was choosing not to care for people. I now see that God meant what He said. What an incredible amount of responsibility God has given us. We can choose, by our actions, to destroy whole species God created and saw as good.
Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed reveals even more of the great power and responsibility God has given us. The Easter Islanders, the Greenland Vikings, the Maya and many other societies collapsed. These societies didn’t collapse because they were made up of evil people doing evil things. They collapsed because of greed. Too many people put short-term gain ahead of sustaining their “garden.”
Mr. Diamond also discusses Christians who claim not to worry about the future of the planet because God will return soon. I don’t believe we should adopt the attitude that God will scrap the planet and save the redeemed humans. I have a hard time finding justification for that idea in the Bible. Besides, God created man to take care of the Earth.
Our mandate as Christians is to love God and love others. We love God when we keep His commands. One of His very first commands was to care for the Earth. As for loving others, we must put others first by taking the long-view and helping sustain the planet Earth for as long as the Lord tarries. Even the simple act of recycling paper is a step in the right direction.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. – Genesis 2:15
My wife has always taken this passage seriously. She goes through my office trashcan to recycle the paper. She insists on taking her own bags to the grocery store. During the first few years of our marriage I would ask her, “Did God really say‘ take care’ of the Garden?” I thought caring for the environment was choosing not to care for people. I now see that God meant what He said. What an incredible amount of responsibility God has given us. We can choose, by our actions, to destroy whole species God created and saw as good.
Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed reveals even more of the great power and responsibility God has given us. The Easter Islanders, the Greenland Vikings, the Maya and many other societies collapsed. These societies didn’t collapse because they were made up of evil people doing evil things. They collapsed because of greed. Too many people put short-term gain ahead of sustaining their “garden.”
Mr. Diamond also discusses Christians who claim not to worry about the future of the planet because God will return soon. I don’t believe we should adopt the attitude that God will scrap the planet and save the redeemed humans. I have a hard time finding justification for that idea in the Bible. Besides, God created man to take care of the Earth.
Our mandate as Christians is to love God and love others. We love God when we keep His commands. One of His very first commands was to care for the Earth. As for loving others, we must put others first by taking the long-view and helping sustain the planet Earth for as long as the Lord tarries. Even the simple act of recycling paper is a step in the right direction.