BULLETIN ARTICLE
28 July 2019
MY FATHER’S WORLD
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good…” (Genesis 1:1, 2, 31)
The world is rapidly changing at an accelerated pace. The increasing impact of globalization, polarisation, digitization, shifting of economic and political power from the global north to the global south is fast bearing upon us. We are constantly faced with urgent, pressing crises, which must be resolved in our generation. Many of the world’s poorest people, ecosystems, flora and fauna species, are being devastated by violence against the environment in multiple ways. Global climate change, deforestation, biodiversity loss, water stress, air pollution, are but a part of these environmental changes. We can no longer afford complacency (doing nothing) with endless meaningless debates.
Love for God and love for our neighbours and the wider creation, as well as our passion for social justice, compel us to “urgent and prophetic ecological responsibility”. Creation care is thus a Christian Gospel issue within the Lordship of the Creator, Jesus Christ.
Loving God through creation care
God handled his creation works intentionally and orderly. He created in the first three days (day/ night, sky/water, water/land), and fills what he created in the next 3 days (sun/stars/moon, sea creatures/birds, animals/mankind). With each creative step, his creation was each “according to their kinds”. And with each step, he sees what he made and declared that: “it was good”.
When God created Adam: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” The same verbs – “work” and “take care of” – are used in the book of Numbers to describe the various Levitical sacred services. Old Testament scholar John Walton suggests that “the garden is being portrayed as sacred space, the tasks given to Adam are of a priestly nature – that is, caring for sacred space.”
Responding to creation care with hope
Much has changed since creation as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2. Humans live in a fallen world. Sin has damaged the relationships between God, humans and creation. One result of the breakdown of the relationship between humans and the earth is environmental degradation. We are having challenges with climate change, overfishing, dirty rivers/oceans, and air pollution/haze, all happening right before us.
As part of the global Church, we must engage with creation care. However, we must not let creation care become our primary focus in life. We must prayerfully ask: “How can we care for creation in a way that is faithful to both the Great Commandment and the Great Commission?” It is not an “either/or” position and has to be a “both/and” one. Loving God and loving people involve caring for God’s wider creation. If we care about the Christian Gospel, we cannot ignore creation care. If we love our neighbours, we must care for our Father’s world where we all must live in as we seek to serve him.
