A good discussion is taking place on the post of November 16:  “Why Care For Creation?”  Scroll on down to the post and click on the “comment now” tag at the top of the post if you’d like to read or join in the discussion.

It’s our desire to see the “Wonder Kids” page become a sort of community for parents, grandparents, and other caregivers where there is a good deal of idea sharing.  We have added a response box at the bottom of the “Wonder Kids” page where you can suggest ways to help children learn about God’s creation and develop a biblical worldview regarding the care of creation.

Click on the “Wonder Kids” menu item at the top of this page, and when you get there, scroll down to the bottom to find the comments box where you can make these suggestions.

On the top of the “Articles” page is a new entry titled “The Lion, the Curse, and the Evangelical.”  If you want to give it a look, click on the “Articles” menu item at the top of this page.  It will be the first article preview you see.  At the end of the preview, click on the “Read More” link to get to the full article.

Here’s a snippet from the article:

Witnessing for Christ means not only sharing God’s salvation plan for man; it also means that we demonstrate renewed appreciation and care for the natural world that God will also restore, renew, and reunite.  Simply put, nature is also going to be “born again.”  Do we hold that joyous truth in our hearts as a motivation to cherish creation’s fellow worshipers who are also recipients of God’s attention and compassion?  If we saw the other living creatures as fellow worshipers of Christ the Creator, would our callousness toward them not diminish?

One of the activities I try every year is climbing trees—regardless of my “senior” status.  I’m often amused at the reactions I get when I’m spotted in a tree.  A few years ago I tried to get as far up as I could into a great climbing tree we had in our front yard: a sycamore.  The first response was from a robin that landed about three feet from my nose.  I’m not sure exactly what shock looks like in a robin, but from the loud squawk and feathers-flying retreat it made when it spotted me, I know it was shocked.  When Marge, my wife, pulled into the driveway from the store, I know she was surprised at being hailed from about 25 feet over her head.  Her response was a bit different.  Something like, “Get out of that tree, you old codger!  You’ll break your neck.”  (I think she actually used a bit more colloquial term for me.)

Well, the thing is—I love trees!  I have ever since I was old enough to climb one.  And you have to hug a tree to climb it; so, yes, you could call me a literal “tree hugger.”  Much of what I appreciate about trees was written in one of RBC’s booklets.  You’ll find it on this blogsite by clicking on the “Author Resources” page in the right-hand menu under “Discovery Series.”  While I highlight in the booklet many of the benefits of trees to the environmental health of the earth and to our own health, we didn’t have space for a number of those benefits.  Below is an enumeration of the things trees do for us.

Twenty Things Trees Do for Us

1.  Provide oxygen. Trees, in a sense, inhale sunlight and carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen.  They’re the “lungs” of the planet acting in counterpoint to living animals which inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. As consumers of carbon dioxide, trees are our first line of defense against global warming.  Not only do they turn carbon dioxide into oxygen, they also store up carbon in their wood, sometimes holding it for hundreds—even thousands of years.

2.  Moderate temperature. An abundance of trees reduces the extremes of heat and cold.

3.  Enhance rainfall. By transpiring moisture into the air and by cooling the air, trees increase rainfall.  For instance, the normally arid land of Jordan has increased its annual rainfall by 15% through reforestation in about 40 years. This transpiration is a vital part of the earth’s water cycle that makes our planet suitable for life.

4.  Collect and absorb dust and other atmospheric pollutants.

5.  Protect the earth from rapid climate change. This is the natural result of the previous vital ecological functions of trees.

6.  Produce and protect healthy soil. Decomposed leaves and wood make up a substantial part of the topsoil that all living things require for life and health.  Leaf litter insulates soil from temperature extremes. Roots aerate soil, add nitrogen to soil, bind soil, circulate water through the soil, and protect soil from erosion and thus enhance stream flow so vital for the life of aquatic creatures and plants.  Trees provide windbreaks to protect soil from wind erosion.  In mass, trees reduce flooding by holding soil and absorbing and collecting as much as 20 percent of rainfall.

7.  Provide food. Tree fruit provides much of the food and nutrients that humans require and provide most of the food for several other living species.

8.  Provide shelter and/or cover for most animals and birds.

9.  Provide protection for thousands of species of sun-sensitive plants.

10.  Provide healing products.  Many of our medicines or medicine components come from trees, as do other vital nutritional necessities.

11.  Provide building products. Nearly every home in America owes its structural integrity to wood.  Add to that the tree products and tree cavities that provide homes for birds, animals, and insects vital to life on earth.

12.  Provide paper products. Consider your quality of life without books, magazines, newspapers, cardboard boxes, match sticks, printer paper, maps, wrapping paper, and toilet paper!

13.  Provide wood for furniture and dozens of other household and workplace products.

14.  Provide fuel. Half of the earth’s population uses wood as fuel for heating and cooking.

15.  Provide “sensory candy.” Trees in their multiple shapes, colors, and landscape contours are among the most beautiful things that people can see.  Tree fragrances are among the most pleasant that people and animals can smell.  Tree flavors are among the most appreciated tastes of people around the globe.  Trees act as sound buffers and as sound producers (the sound of wind and rain in the trees being vital to the human sensory experience).

16.  Produce a sense of rootedness and community. Consider how many streets and community developments are named for trees.  Sadly, we find that people often name their streets and developments for the natural features they destroyed to build their communities.  Nonetheless, flying over America, we can see that our most cherished trees are the ones that line our streets, encircle our homes, and festoon our parks.  People who have grown up in the company of familiar trees understand how important they are the day the trees fall.

17.  Provide living fences that hold back drifting sand and snow

18.  Reduce light intensity from the sun.

19.  Provide privacy.

20. Protect watersheds for communities.

How To Care For Trees

1. Learn about the forests (in order to appreciate their role in our lives).
2. Remember the forest’s relationship to people as mutual creations of God.
3. Remind yourself regularly of your personal responsibility in creation stewardship.
4. Stay aware of forest policies and uses.
5. Recognize the forest’s vulnerability to needless consumption and abuse.
6. Become intimate with a few nearby trees or forests.
7. And climb one every chance you get!

You might also want to read my essay on “The Trouble With Trees” which is also found by going to “Pages” on the right-hand menu, then to “Articles.”  When you get there, scroll down to find the article.

See you outdoors!

Dean

“I have not yet been able to put your environmental concern into my view of eschatology [the "end times"].”

So said a good friend. He comes from the same Dispensationalist background I come from. I appreciate his candor. I know what he means: Since the earth will “wear out like a garment” (Heb. 1:11); since some of it will “melt” (2 Pet. 3:12); since Jesus will return for us; since our future home will be heaven; since man is most important to God, why should we care about the state of the earth?

My answer has to be this: We have have been looking at the wrong end of the Bible to understand our relationship to the creation. We need to look at the beginning. While how creation happened is constantly debated in Christian circles, there is seldom an argument about the early mandates found in the first two chapters of Genesis about how we use and relate to the creation: the dominion mandate in 1:28 and the marriage mandate in 2:24. Sandwiched between those two, however, is the stewardship mandate in 2:15. We seldom question the dominion mandate or the marriage mandate. But I don’t think we do well with the stewardship mandate.

Here we are told that man and woman were put into the Garden to cultivate it and to take care of it. The full sense of those infinitives in the Hebrew includes being a husbandman, or steward, of it—a task that means putting a hedge around it, protecting it, serving it, preserving it, and saving it. I feel that this command is often the forgotten mandate. If we had been heeding this divine requirement as enthusiastically as we do the dominion mandate, I think things would be significantly different—at least in the Christian community today.

So why should we care about the state of the earth?

1) We should care because it is the obedient thing to do. Nowhere in Scripture do I see that the original mandates have been rescinded. Although our dominion is often abused because of the Fall, the dominion mandate remains our ideal. Although our marriages suffer because of sin, the marriage mandate remains our ideal. Although the task of stewardship is difficult in the presence of evil and because of the curse, the creation care mandate remains our ideal. We indeed glorify God in our obedience to all three mandates.

2) We should care because it is the loving thing to do. In Psalm 145 we have this revealing verse: “The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving toward all He has made” (Psa. 145:17). That verse follows right after the one that says God opens His hand and satisfies “the desires of every living thing.” At the very least we can understand from these verses that if God is righteous and loving toward all He has made, we can attempt to be the same. As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, “If we love the Lover, we will love that the Lover has made.” Further, when we care properly for the earth, we also demonstrate love for our neighbor and for ourselves—so that all aspects of the Great Commandment can be carried out.

Certainly there are many unanswered questions about the future state of the earth, the material final state of the believer, and the nature of heaven. Nonetheless, it is clear to me that Jesus’ promise of future bliss must never be an excuse for present carelessness regarding His creation. If the atoning sacrifice of the second Adam is going to result in the reconciliation of all things ruined by the sin of the first Adam (Col. 1:20); if all of creation is on tiptoe groaning for the day when it will be released from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:20-22 Phillips); if Isaiah’s Messianic peaceable kingdom is yet to come, how can I be less than a loving and careful steward of God’s creation handiwork.

So since we are no doubt closer in time to the restoration than we are to the time of the curse, our outlook should be that of Isaac Watts who wrote of the coming return of Earth’s true King,

Joy to the world! The Lord is come;

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And heaven and nature sing. . . .

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

See you outdoors!

Dean