The Lord said to Job] “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken [Job 38:12-15].
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I was having coffee with my friend Jack this morning, and he told me about taking a cruise through the Alaskan fjords. One day he was up early and taking in the awe-inspiring view of mountains beginning to stand out in the early morning sun—like folds of a garment. While he was taking in the beauty of it all, he overheard a conversation between two men nearby. One of their comments stunned him: “What in the world is the value of this land; you could never really do anything with it.”
One would hope that Jack’s inner thought would be common to most of us: “Thank God that mankind can’t do anything with it!” Sometimes I think we’d all like to see God break a few upraised arms of men.
China's Three Gorges Dam
Every generation seems to have what I call a “pride of the present”: we tend to believe that our thinking is sounder and our worldview more informed than the previous one—perhaps even all previous generations. This is especially apparent in regard to the natural world—which modern science and technology believes it has virtually mastered. Because nature has been our easy provider, willing patient, and sometimes cadaver for so long, we have tended to lose respect for it. And what we no longer respect, we can easily come to abuse.
I feel we modern followers of Christ have also become somewhat blind followers of technology and have adopted the same utilitarian view toward God’s good creation that we see in much of science and industry. This utilitarian approach, however, is really the child of the humanistic “Enlightenment” and the subsequent Industrial Revolution, not of a true understanding of the theology of nature.
Interestingly, two of the most significant Reformers, John Calvin and Martin Luther, had been quite successful in framing a sound biblical theology of nature in the 16th century that corrected the faulty dualistic theology of the Middle Ages that saw the material world as something low and degraded that needed to be escaped from (a view that goes all the way back to Plato and is also foundational to Eastern religions). Their followers eventually became the champions of the “Protestant work ethic” that in part led to the Industrial Revolution and the ultimate devaluation of the creation that Calvin and Luther had helped to free from mysticism and dualism. See the Wikipedia article about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic
Calvin and Luther both had a high view of the natural world that I think
we need to recapture. I firmly believe we need to trade our pride of the present for humility and an understanding that other generations before us may have had a more biblically sound view of the creation than we do. I go into depth on that issue in the article “Listening To the Right Voices,” which you can get to by going to the “Articles” button at the top of the page.
To whet your appetite on rethinking how Christians ought to consider the creation, let me drop in a couple quotes on this post that you can also find on this Website under “Creation Quotations”:
From Luther:
“Now if I believe in God’s Son and bear in mind that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, pears, as I reflect that he is Lord over and the center of all things.”
From Calvin:
“In every part of the world, in heaven and on earth, he has written and as it were engraven the glory of his power, goodness and eternity…. For all creatures, from the firmament even to the center of the earth, could be witnesses and messengers of his glory to all men, drawing them on to seek him and, having found him, to do him service and honor according to the dignity of a Lord so good, so potent, so wise and everlasting….For the little singing birds sang of God, the animals acclaimed Him, the elements feared and the mountains resounded with Him, the river and springs threw glances toward Him, the grasses and the flowers smiled.”
Because of our generational pride and our loss of sensitivity to the natural world I wonder often if we can ever regain the biblical perspective these influential reformers understood.



One of the sad misconceptions of many within the conservative evangelical church has been the understanding that we are “aliens and strangers” on the earth. The truth is, however, that we are to be aliens and strangers to the world—to the ungodly and rebellious world system ruled over by Satan. The Scripture informs us that this world system is going to be destroyed and its diabolical ruler vanquished for eternity. And as a long and glorious celebration of our Savior’s victory, we are going to reign with Him on this very earth* which so many of us now abuse and malign. When we attain our final and complete adoption as children of God, we will embrace a good earth healed from the curse where thorns no longer “infest the ground.”
under the earth, on the sea, and in the sea. Imagine the scene: larks, dragonflies, rabbits, badgers, moles, trap-door spiders, Portugese men-of-war, sharks, and sea stars all attending to the Savior-Creator and singing! Who says Narnia is fiction? Remember that
ed to repent of our careless lack of camaraderie with the other creatures of the earth and of our lack of care for the marvelous handiwork of God that has faithfully given witness from the beginning of His divine nature and eternal power (Romans 1:20). With our hearts and with our hands, let us work toward the anticipated restoration of the good Earth.
refreshed, restored, reunited, and reconciled to God the Father. Why would all this need to be done if God simply plans to annihilate this earth and give us a new planet? Why would the creatures look for the day of redemption in hope, if they are merely going to be annihilated with the earth?
One of the areas of Bible study that does not seem to get much attention from Bible scholars and teachers is its vast references to animals, birds, trees, and other plants. That’s why I really enjoy the site developed by my friend Lytton Musselman, head of the botany department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia: his
wanton killer of non-human creatures [wanton meaning "lacking reason or provocation"]. I grew up in a town where if a critter had fins, fur, feathers or four or more feet, it was fair game. I got my first BB-gun when I was about 10—a Daisy Red Ryder at that! One of my later BB-guns had 110 notches on it before it wore out (the notches indicating the number of birds I had killed with it).
again. Simply said, we are not what we should be, and nature knows it. Every time animals flee from me or try to attack me out of perceived self-defense when I mean them no harm, I hurt. Don’t you? And when wild animals do take the risk to venture close, I thrill at being trusted.