Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Care About the Environment? | Torah | Genesis 8

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here to grow in your faith this year. Does God care about animals? What does the Bible say about taking care of the environment? In today's episode, Patrick explains how God's covenant in Genesis 8 displays God's heart for creation. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Passages: Genesis 8 Related episodes: Do Pets Go to Heaven? What Does Saving the Environment Have to Do With Salvation? Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life in the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. I'm Tanya Wilman. I'm Jensen Holmick-Mare. And I'm Patrick Miller. We are exploring the first books of the Bible. Right now, we are in Genesis. If you're like me, you love email newsletters, but most of them don't bring me closer to God.

Well, it's time to give Jesus access to your inbox. Sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks email newsletter. Once a week, you'll get a believe. lessively short email with guides on spiritual disciplines, inspiring challenges to grow, interesting cultural backgrounds on today's passage, and even quick studies of Hebrew and Greek words. Each week's going to be a little bit different and you're going to love the variety. So stop what you're doing. Click the link in the show notes and sign up today. Now, let's hop into today's episode. Does God care about animals? Does God care about the environment? Should Christians

care about animals or the environment, you'd be hard pressed to find many sermons answering these questions in the affirmative. In fact, you'd kind of be hard pressed to find any sermons talking about the environment or animals at all. And perhaps maybe this just isn't too surprising. I mean, surely the Bible doesn't have that much to say about worldly topics like ecology and how we treat animals, that kind of thing. The first time I realized I was wrong about that assumption was shortly after I became a Christian in college. Given my new faith, I thought maybe one of the first things I should do is take a class on the Bible. And so I enrolled in an Old Testament course taught in the Religious Studies Department at the

college I was attending. Now, I have to admit, I was a little bit naive at the time. I simply assumed that a class on the Bible would be taught by a Christian. But on day one, my professor relieved me of these faulty assumptions. He explained that he was an atheist who studied the Old Testament the same way he would study any religious text, basically as a socio-historical time capsule, which offered a window into the religious lives of the Second Temple Jews who composed most of what Christians call the Old Testament. Now, he started the class, no surprise, in Genesis. And he immediately zoomed in on Genesis 1, 27 to 28. And this is where God calls humanity to have dominion over the birds and the beast and the fish, and to subdue

his creation. Now, my professor explained to us that in Hebrew, the words for dominion and subdue, that they were violent and even sexual, the God of the Old Testament, according to him, he wanted humanity to rape creation. He wanted humanity to claim all of creation's fecundity and potentiality, all for human purposes.

I was a little bit shocked by this when he said it. I mean, how could the creator of such a beautiful world view it with such abject distinct as a body just to be molested? Around this same time, I also became familiar with Michael Pallon's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. In this book, it unveiled the horrible mistreatment of chickens, pigs, and cows at these industry-level farms.

One example, it still really sticks in my memory. It was just so shocking. He talked about how chickens are packed so tightly that they can't move or spread their wings. And this obviously creates infection and sickness, which was then treated with enormous amounts of antibiotics. The enclosure made some of the chickens go mad, and so they'd end up pecking at the other chickens. They'd wound those chickens. They'd blind the other chickens.

And in response, those chickens, the ones that went crazy, their beaks were removed. It's a horrible image when you start thinking about it. A chicken. Eyes blinded, beak gone, unable to move for its entire life. But perhaps, I thought, I mean, maybe this is exactly what God wants. Humans are called to, I guess, rape God's creation. maybe this is what it looks like. As I looked at many public Christian thinkers, the same themes seem to apply. They were often the loudest voices condemning the science of climate change. They were often

the loudest voices arguing in favor of large corporations that they should be free to pollute. This world, after all, they'd say, I mean, it's all going to burn. So why does it matter? So I tried to swallow my moral indignation at the treatment of animals, at our treatment of the environment. And I just wondered, I mean, how could God allow something that seemed so, so, so wrong? Years later, I discovered that everything that professor had said, everything that those Christian political figures had taught that it was all utterly wrong. God does care about animals. God does care about the environment. Once I learned Hebrew, I discovered that dominion and subdue, that they actually lack a violent connotation.

There's nothing sexual about those terms. And in fact, the idea of having dominion and subduing, it's explained in Genesis 2 when God calls Adam to serve and to protect the Garden of Eden. Now, those two words, serve and protect. Those are exactly the same words that God used when he told priests how to treat the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a place of God's presence, and he called priests to serve and to protect it. In other words, this creation is living.

like the tabernacle, the place of God's presence. And humans, we are called to serve and to protect it. That's how we have dominion over it. We are good kings, good queens. That's how we exercise our dominion over creation. As I studied the Torah, I was surprised to read law after law commanding the Israelites to treat animals humanely. There were other laws that commanded Israelites to protect forest from the deforestation that was often caused by war. As I studied the prophets, I came to see that God's plan, it's not actually to burn everything, but he wants to renew all of creation. The apostle Paul put it rather starkly in Romans 8 when he said that all of creation is longing for the adoption and resurrection of God's children. Why? Because when they're resurrected, so will all of

creation be resurrected into glory? This world is not a sinking ship. It's a ship that's already been sunk by human sin. In Jesus, he is bringing that sunken ship from the bottom of the ocean. He is raising it back up to the surface in glory. No story illustrates God's care for the whole of creation like the flood account. That might sound a little bit counterintuitive to you. The flood was kind of the unmaking of God's creation. But think about it. On that, boat, there weren't just humans. There were animals, and those animals were there at God's command. God loves the animals so much that he saved them.

And when Noah gets off the boat, God proceeds to make his first explicit covenant. He promises to never again cause a cataclysm, like the flood. So much for God burning all of creation, by the way. But what I find interesting is that the later covenants that God makes, they're always between God and humans. But this first covenant, the first experience. Blicit covenant in the Bible, it's not between just God and Noah. The first covenant right off the ark is between God and Noah and all of creation. In Genesis 8-1, we read, but God remembered

Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock. So why does God cause the floodwaters to recede? Because he's not just remembering humans. He's remembering the whole of his creation. In Genesis 817, God commands Noah to release the animals. so that they can be fruitful and they can multiply. In Genesis 9, we read that God's covenant promise is not only for Noah, but actually for the whole of creation. I'll just read a short passage here. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,

I now establish my covenant with you, so there's humanity and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that was with you, the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals and all those that came out of the ark with you, every living creature on the earth, I establish my covenant with you, with you all, not just Noah, not just his sons, but all living things. He continues, never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood. Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth. God's concerns extend well, well,

well beyond his human creation. The whole of creation is very good in God's eyes and as Christians. We've been invited into Adam's original calling to serve and to protect this creation. On a practical level, what's that mean for you? How might this impact, for example, the kind of meat you buy? Perhaps it's time to change to ethically raised chicken or pork or beef. Moreover, how does it change how you run your business, how you think about business in general, how you think about pollution. We've been invited by the grace of Jesus into a world transformation project. Pray that God would show you how you can take part in that. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show

notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that's going to help you beat that midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.