How Should Christians Treat the Environment

Embed Doc
Copy Link
Readcast
Collections

CommentGo Back

Ask the Pastor!

How should Christians treat the environment?

We turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1 beginning in verse 24.

24

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures accordingto their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, andwild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so.

25

Godmade the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along theground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26

Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, inour likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, andover all the creatures that move along the ground."

27

So God created human beings in his own image,in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them.

28

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increasein number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the seaand the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moveson the ground."

29

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on theface of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.They will be yours for food.

30

And to all the beasts of the earth andall the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on theground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give everygreen plant for food." And it was so.

31

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And therewas evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

In 1899 Anton Chekhov published a play titled Uncle Vanya inwhich he wrote that “man has been endowed with reason, with the

1

power to create, so that he can add to what he’s been given. But upto now he hasn’t been a creator, only a destroyer. Forests keepdisappearing, rivers dry up, wild life’s become extinct, theclimate’s ruined and the land grows poorer and uglier every day.”A hundred years later and these words still seem to fit the worldthat we live in.Climate change and global warming are things we hear about on adaily basis. Fresh, clean drinking water is becoming harder to findand more expensive to produce. Major cities have been blanketed by haze and smog. Deserts are increasing while forests aredecreasing.Read a newspaper, watch television, or pay attention to current politics and there is no way that you can make it through a week without coming across a statistic that tells you about the reductionin forests or the extinction of plant and animal species.And because of all of these things we’ve seen and the data we’veheard about the environment is one of the biggest areas of changein the way that we are living our lives.Many of us here now have not only a garbage can in our homes butalso a blue box for recycling and some of us even have green binsfor compost. Our refrigerators and air conditioners no longer useOzone depleting CFCs to keep things cool. And although the primary motivation for change is gas prices, we’re starting to seemore people think about what we drive to the point where the autoindustry is set for a major change away from the gasoline engine.Yet even with all of these things happening in terms of environmental damage and with all the ways that we have changedthe way we live it is only really in the past year that we have

2

started to hear conservative evangelical Christians and leaders startto talk about the environment.Which is why the question I received for tonight is both a good oneand a timely one for us to think about:

How should Christians treat the environment?

The short answer is, not surprisingly, better. The thing is that most people – Christians and non-Christians – know that.Our goal in answering the question tonight is not to convince youthat we have to fix the environment – instead it is to think aboutwhat it means to be a Christian in the environment. We are goingto learn that taking care of this world is a part of who we are calledto be as Christians. Now in order to get there…

I. We first need to change the way we understand our place inthis world.

This is a lot harder than it sounds. Historically, the Christianchurch has seen our place in creation in pretty much the same waysince the beginning.Reading again from our text…

28

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase innumber; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the seaand the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moveson the ground."

29

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on theface of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.They will be yours for food.

30

And to all the beasts of the earth andall the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move on the

3

of 00

Leave a Comment