Creation Care

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Read for This Week's Study: Rom. 1:25, 2 Pet. 3:10–14, Gen. 2:15, Neh. 13:16–19, Heb. 1:3, Psalm 100, Gen. 1:26–28.

Memory Text:

Key Thought: How should Christians relate to the environment?

*Study this week's lesson to prepare for Sabbath, February 25.

The Lobster Liberation Movement!

Years ago an environmentalist entered a seafood restaurant. There before him, sitting in a large tank, were half a dozen Maine lobsters that probably wouldn’t last the night. A customer would pick the one out that he or she wanted to eat, and before long the lobster would be sitting on someone’s plate next to, perhaps, a potato smothered in cheese.

Moving stealthily, the environmentalist, holding a bag, reached into the tank, grabbed the first lobster he could get his hands on, threw it into the bag, and ran. He then put the lobster in a tank in his car and drove to the shore. There, a helicopter took him over the ocean, and he then returned the lobster to the water. A lobster liberator strikes again!

The man was not alone in his concern. You can visit a Web site titled “Lobster Liberation” that talks about saving lobsters from getting eaten by humans. It even has a section called “Tips for Releasing Lobsters,” telling you what to do once you rescue lobsters from the restaurant.

Another time, an American actress dedicated an entire episode of her sitcom to smuggling lobsters out of restaurants and releasing them in the ocean.

Caring about the environment is one thing, but stealing a lobster out of a restaurant and taking it, by helicopter, back to the ocean does seem a bit extreme, does it not?

All of which leads to the question: what about Christians, indeed, Seventh-day Adventist Christians, and the environment? Putting aside the strangeness of the lobster liberators, how should we relate to environmental concerns? After all, isn’t Jesus coming soon? Isn’t our whole message predicated on the notion that this world is coming to an end, that this earth is corrupted and not going to last? Given our understanding of the Second Coming, how concerned need we really be about the earth itself?

Read 2 Peter 3:10–14, Isaiah 51:6, 65:17, and Revelation 21:1. What does the Bible clearly teach about the ultimate fate of the earth? How should this teaching impact the way we look at the environment? Or should it at all? 

The Bible is more than unequivocal: this world, this earth, will not last. It is destined to be destroyed, and by God, who promises to make it over, to re-create it, to make a “new heaven and a new earth.” Though that’s hardly an excuse (as we’ll see this week) to abuse or exploit the environment, it should at the same time help protect us from making a god, as many have done, out of the earth and of the environment. While we can laugh at the extremists, we need to be careful not to get caught up in those extremes ourselves.

Read Romans 1:25. What important message should we take in regard to how we show our concern and care for the creation?

A Statement on Creation Care

How, then, do Seventh-day Adventists look at the question of the environment? How do we get involved and yet seek to keep a right balance? Below is an official statement, voted by the church leadership back in 1995.

“Seventh day Adventists believe that humankind was created in the image of God, thus representing God as His stewards, to rule the natural environment in a faithful and fruitful way.

“Unfortunately, corruption and exploitation have been brought into the management of the human domain of responsibility. Increasingly men and women have been involved in a megalomaniacal destruction of the earth’s resources, resulting in widespread suffering, environmental disarray, and the threat of climate change. While scientific research needs to continue, it is clear from the accumulated evidence that the increasing emission of destructive gasses, the depletion of the protective mantle of ozone, the massive destruction of the American forests, and the so called greenhouse effect, are all threatening the earth’s ecosystem.

“These problems are largely due to human selfishness and the egocentric pursuit of getting more and more through ever increasing production, unlimited consumption and depletion of nonrenewable resources. The ecological crisis is rooted in humankind’s greed and refusal to practice good and faithful stewardship within the divine boundaries of creation.

“Seventh day Adventists advocate a simple, wholesome lifestyle, where people do not step on the treadmill of unbridled consumerism, goods getting, and production of waste. We call for respect of creation, restraint in the use of the world’s resources, reevaluation of one’s needs, and reaffirmation of the dignity of created life.”—Adventist Administrative Committee (ADCOM), released at General Conference session in Utrecht, the Netherlands, June 29–July 8, 1995.

Look up the following texts. How do they help us understand the reasoning behind this church statement? Gen. 1:1, 26; 9:7; Psalm 24:1; 100; James 5:1, 2, 4, 5; Heb. 1:3.  

If anything, as Christians who believe that this world and the life and resources on it are gifts from God, we should be at the forefront of seeking to take care of it. If you believed that the earth is just a chance creation, the product of cold, uncaring forces, one could almost be excused in seeking to exploit it to their own ends. When, though, we understand this world as something that God created, and sustains, it’s hard to see how we could do anything other than be responsible stewards of it.

How might your own selfishness impact how you treat the environment? And what’s wrong with the attitude that says, “Well, I’m only one person, so what does it matter?”

Creation Care

The issue of the environment, and taking care of the environment, isn’t specifically and openly addressed in the Bible. Of course, there are a lot of specific issues that the Bible doesn’t address. What the Bible does do, and does again and again, is give us principles that should be applied to all areas of life, which include the question of the environment.

Think about Matthew 22:37–40. In what ways could the principles taught here impact our attitude toward environmental concerns, especially when misuse of the environment can have some very detrimental effects on others?  

Early on in the Bible, we are given some indication of humanity’s call to be a steward of what God had given Adam on the earth. Though the context is very specific, it’s hard to see why the principle shouldn’t continue.

Genesis 2:15 reads, “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” In what way does this reveal how humankind was originally to relate to the earth? 

Notice the reciprocal relationship here. God created this beautiful environment for the man; it was given to him as a gift. And yet, see how Adam was to relate to it. He was to work it and to keep it. The word translated “keep” comes from the Hebrew root, smr, which means “to watch” or “to preserve” or “to protect.” Thus, right from the start, even in the pre-Fall world, Adam was called to be a steward of the environment in which he was placed. God didn’t tell him to exploit it, to use it for his own selfish means, and to get out of it all that he could. Instead, he is told to work it and protect it.

What reason could we have for believing that this principle has changed? In fact, if this is what Adam was called to do in a world before sin entered, how much more important would good stewardship of the world be after it has been damaged by sin?

How conscious are you of environmental concerns? How much do you really even care about them? How important or unimportant is it to you? Bring your answer to class on Sabbath.?

Sabbath and the Environment

“Hell and Destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Prov. 27:20, NKJV). How does the truth of this text directly impact the whole question of creation care and the danger our exploits pose to the environment?  

As the creation statement said, part of the reason for the issue with our environment today has to do with “human selfishness and the egocentric pursuit of getting more and more through ever increasing production, unlimited consumption and depletion of nonrenewable resources.” In other words, people just want more and more, and the only place they can get it is, ultimately, from the earth. Using natural resources, though, isn’t the problem; instead, the problem is that no matter how much a person gets, it’s never enough. When was the last time you ever heard someone, no matter how wealthy, say that they had enough money?

In the midst of all this, God has given humanity the gift of the Sabbath.

Look up these Sabbath texts. Though we tend to think about them in other contexts, try thinking about them in the context of how Sabbath keeping, by commanding us to rest from our work, to rest from seeking to make money and do business, could in a very real way impact the environment for good. 

Exod. 20:8–11

Neh. 13:16–19

Sure, the Sabbath is about remembering that God created the world (which itself should make us conscious about how we treat it), but it is also about resting from the pursuit of making money. By keeping the Sabbath, by purposely taking one seventh of our lives every week and without exception, and not pursuing wealth and money and goods, we not only have a powerful weekly reminder that life isn’t all about making money, but we are also often refraining from the kind of pursuits that, when overdone, do damage to the earth.

How has Sabbath keeping been a means of helping restrain your own greed and desire for more? How often has the lure of money tempted you to violate the Sabbath?

Humankind’s Dominion

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. . . . And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:26, 28).

In the above two verses we have some of the Bible’s earliest references to how humanity is to relate to the created world. Read them over prayerfully and carefully, thinking about them in the context of creation care and environmental concerns, and then answer the following questions.

1. How complete was humanity’s control over the earth to be?  

2. What does it mean to subdue and to have dominion over the earth and all that was in it? What, if anything in the texts, gives humanity the license to abuse and defile that creation?  

3. Genesis 1:28 says that they are to “replenish the earth.” The literal Hebrew means to “fill the earth.” How might that be understood in regard to the question of how it should be treated?  

No question, humanity was to rule over the earth, at least under the power and direction of the Lord. The fact that these verses were given in the pre-Fall world, a world without sin and death and suffering, should teach that whatever dominion over the world means, it doesn’t mean a violent exploitation and plundering of the world, for those things certainly would not have happened in a world before sin. Whatever subduing and dominion entailed, it didn’t entail destroying that world.

Of course, a lot has changed since then: the Fall, the Flood, and the curse (Gen. 3:17–19), and the general degeneration caused by sin as a whole. Yet, one would be hard pressed to see in these texts anything that justifies the plunder and ruin of the planet itself. If anything, we can see in these texts humankind’s responsibility, as ruler of the world, to take care of it because God created it, and it was “very good.”

Further Study:  

Discussion Questions:

As a class, go over your answers to Tuesday’s final questions.    How would you respond to the person who says, “Jesus is coming soon, so why should I care about the environment?”    How can we as Christians strike the right balance in understanding the need to be concerned about the environment while at the same time not getting caught up in some of the extremist movements involved in environmental issues? Why is it so important that we don’t get caught up with them, especially those who are very political?    If you have the resources, do some research on just how beneficial a vegetarian diet is to the environment in contrast to a meat-eating one. Discuss your findings with the rest of the class.

Summary:

No question, this world is coming to an end; it will not last forever. And yes, Jesus is coming soon. All that’s true, but nothing in these truths gives us the right, or the mandate, to defile the earth. If anything, as Christians, we should seek to take care of the world that our God has created for us.

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