Working with Son Safaris has increased my appreciation for God’s presence in creation and my recognition of the interdependent relationship between humanity and nature, especially as concern for global climate change grows.
Son Safaris’ staff arrived in South Africa this week to prepare for the summer Mission to Africa teams to arrive. For the next seven weeks they will live at Welgevonden Wildlife Reserve and will engage in many creation care projects side by side with the intern researchers from around the world studying with Wegevonden Research.
Our main project will be putting radio transmitter collars on elephants to both protect them from ivory poachers and to learn more about the habits of these magnificent animals. You can be part of our care for God’s creation by contributing to the Elephant Radio Collar Fund.
Creation care is a Bible mandate – that means for Bible believers it is not optional. A very short version of why I believe creation care is no more optional than evangelism, benevolence, or any virtue God clearly reveals as His will for us follows..
The fundamental mandate for creation care comes from Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” Here God places Adam in the garden to “work it and take care of it” (NIV). Most Hebrew scholars believe a better translation from the Hebrew is “to serve it and to preserve it.” In Genesis 1:26-28, God created humankind to have dominion over the earth. This acknowledgement that humanity is unique among the species on earth does not, however, give license to drive those species to extinction nor is it permission to exploit the planet. In fact the next two verses affirm the right of animals to share in the bounty of the earth’s produce (Gen 1:29-30)
The problematic word in these verses is “dominion”, taken by many to give us carte blanche approval to do with creation whatever we want. But taken in context of Genesis “dominion” is best practiced in serving and preserving God’s creation, in being good stewards of what has been placed in our trust. The story of Noah surely illustrates this when Noah is charged with implementing God’s first endangered species act.
Psalm 104, the great creation psalm views humanity as one species among many animal species, all meant to flourish together (Psalm 104:14-23). In the next verse the psalmist exclaims, “O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (v. 24).
God created the world in wisdom and out of love. John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.)tells us that God in wisdom and out of love for the world sent Christ to redeem it
In Christ “all things hold together” according to Colossians 1:17 (He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.), and “every creature under heaven” is to receive God’s good news that “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. v. 23.
God’s work in the world, according to Revelation 21:5 (And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.”) is “making all things new” . God will bring about a new creation that does not destroy the old but transforms and renews it.
Just as surely as the church is the sign of the new creation, is the church mandated to lead the way in caring for creation!
“The gospel declares that God put us here, that God is here, and that God makes our home here, his home here. The gospel places us in the world that God loved in such a way that he gave his only son on its behalf.…God joins us, down here amongst the malaria-ridden swamps and the dry, overworked hills. God makes our home his home. God declares this planet worth his time and attention.
— Daniel J. Stulac in “Plough Quarterly” No. 4: Earth
The Shadowlander 