It was such an unusual sight that I ran over to the neighbors and sent then scurrying to their back deck to see: Sandhill cranes walking like regents not ten feet from the back of our condos.  That’s the closest I’ve ever been to one of these regal birds who wear cardinals’ caps and walk as thought they were attendants at the installation of a new pope.

I was certain that it was an aberration that would likely not happen again.  But to my delight, they have been hanging around the nearby country club—even walking next to fairways seeming to ignore the golfers who stop and gawk at the unusual sight.  Then yesterday I saw them on my walk to work.  As I stalked them with my camera, they calmly walked ahead of me too dignified to acknowledge my presence. Michigan is at the eastern edge of the summer nesting zone of this wonderful bird, and it certainly seems that they are both multiplying and becoming more friendly.

Usually we see them a good hundred yards or more off the road at the far edge of farm fields.  My most enjoyable sighting was some fifteen years ago near West Yellowstone where our group was able to watch their fascinating courting antics—which also look as though they were choreographed by cathedral bishops. When they call, however, their dignity takes a beating.  It’s a hoarse graawwwwwk that you typically hear descending from the sky during migration and has the uncanny capacity to make you believe they are just overhead.  But more times than not, I have been unable to pick out the flock, sometimes called a “swoop,” because the gray of their underparts blends in with the high clouds.  But when you do catch sight of them, so high they look tiny, you stand transfixed as they swirl and soar on the thermals that can carry them from Florida to Northern Canada in the spring.

I always feel blessed by these wildlife epiphanies that continue to add to my wonder in God’s great creation.

See some YouTube videos at these sites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtMlOcvXMg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifjcghhfm7c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgvwgI51DGU

See you outdoors!

Dean

While many Christians today are convinced that animals have souls, it’s likely that the majority believe they don’t. Whatever the opinion, it seems probable that the beliefs of most Christians on this issue are not based on clearly understood biblical passages. The reason for this is not hard to determine: the Scriptures that make reference to the soul are themselves general and somewhat confusing.

A simple answer based on the first two chapters of Genesis would affirm that animals do have a soul of some sort. In Genesis 1:20, 24 (NIV) the Creator calls for the water and the land to bring forth “living creatures.” The Hebrew words for this expression are nephesh chay. The term chay is derived from chayah, a root word meaning “to live.”

The term nephesh is from the root word that means “to breathe,” and it is translated throughout the OT as “soul.” The King James Version of the Bible translates the expression nephesh chay as “moving creatures that hath life.” Curiously, however, the KJV translates the expression as “living soul” when it is used to identify mankind in Genesis 2:7: “and man became a living soul.” It is likely that the two different renderings of the same terms have led to the understanding that animals merely have life but people have souls. The NIV, on the other hand, avoids this dichotomy by translating both uses of the expression as “living creature.”

To complicate matters even more, in Deuteronomy 12:23 the word nephesh is used to explain why blood should not be eaten with the meat: “But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life (nephesh) and you must not eat the life with the meat” (NIV). This is echoed in Lev. 17:11 and other passages regarding the levitical laws. This would appear to give nephesh a material meaning. So in one instance it seems to be more non-material as the “soul” and in another instance it seems to be material.

Even more confusing is the fact that in the account of the Flood it speaks of the destruction “of every creature that hath the breath of life (ruwach) in it” (Gen. 6:17 NIV). The Hebrew term ruwach is usually translated as “spirit” in most other OT passages where it is used. This word is used in Ecclesiastes 3:21 to refer to both the “spirit” of people and the “spirit” of animals. So it appears that even “spirit” can be attributed to both animals and mankind. The actual Hebrew meaning of ruwach is also “to breathe” or “exhale.”

So the two words that are variously translated “soul” and “spirit” actually have a similar meaning. This no doubt adds to the controversy about whether or not people are composed of three parts or two (trichotomism vs. dichotomism).

Nonetheless, these and several other Scripture passages give support to the belief that animals do indeed have a soul/spirit. Even conservative Bible scholar C.I. Scofield, who strongly influenced the Dispensational views of many Baptist and Bible churches, comments, “In the sense of conscious life [implied by the term nephesh], an animal also has a soul.”  What is unfortunate is that many non-Christians conclude that there is no fundamental difference between people and animals.  That conclusion, however, is unfounded. What clearly distinguishes people from animals is what theologians call the imago Dei: Mankind was created “in the image of God” (Gen. 1:27). Animals were not.

John Wesley in his classic sermon on the difference between man and animals, “The General Deliverance” (Nov. 30, 1781) makes this very clear. In the sermon, Wesley shows great compassion and concern for the “brute creation,” and even states his belief that man and animals share self-motion, understanding, will, and liberty. He even believed that before the Fall animals had “some shadowy resemblance of even moral goodness” in that as people were to obey God, animals were to be subservient to people. Yet when he speaks of people, Wesley says that “man was God’s vice-regent upon the earth, the prince and governor of this lower world. . . . What makes the barrier between men and brutes? . . . It is this: man is capable of God; the inferior creatures are not.”

Wesley also believed, as do many Bible scholars, that the animal kingdom was cursed because of Adam’s sin and that it does not give much evidence today of what its glory was in Eden. He understood that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ provided for the redemption of mankind—and of the animal kingdom. He was convinced that the present suffering of animals under the curse and under the cruel hand of fallen man would be recompensed by their sharing in the glory to come. In reference to Romans 8:19-22 and Revelation 21:5 he believed that “the whole brute creation will then undoubtedly be restored, not only to the vigor, strength, and swiftness which they had at the creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed.” Schofield adds, “Even the animal and material creation, cursed for man’s sake, will be delivered by Christ.”

This begs the question as to whether there is a soul or spiritual essence in each individual animal that survives death and will once again, in the “general deliverance,” be reunited with a glorified body. Do all dogs really go to heaven? The Bible simply does not say. However, since the Bible clearly states that in the future messianic kingdom there will be animals freed from the curse (Isa. 11:6-9), it is not out of the question to suggest that such animals could be the same ones who left their cursed bodies on the old earth and were graced by the Creator to now inhabit new bodies. However, that would indeed be merely an assumption—yet the hope of many (C. S.  Lewis and George MacDonald, for instance).

Evangelical scholar John Piper in his book Future Grace includes a poem he wrote about the coming kingdom. These lines underscore the often unexpressed hope many of us have about pets that have died:

And as I knelt beside a brook

To drink eternal life, I took

A glance across the golden grass,

And saw my dog, old Blacky, fast

As she could come. She leaped the stream—

Almost— and what a happy gleam

Was in her eye. I knelt to drink,

And knew that I was on the brink

Of endless joy. . . .

In the light of all we know about the grandeur of God’s creation, about His love for mankind, about His care for the sparrow that falls, and about His plan to include the animals in the future kingdom, we certainly have grounds for considering with great remorse the manner in which mankind has added evil cruelty to the effects of the Fall already borne by the animals. It certainly would please the Creator for man, the crown of creation, to begin to behave more in keeping with the way we will be expected to behave in the kingdom to come when there truly will be “joy to the world.”

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow.

Far as the curse is found.

See you outdoors!

Dean

In my last post I mentioned the stony surround on the outside of our RBC building.  But what’s really fascinating to me are the rocks in the building.  I did just a brief survey of offices (okay, cubicles) and discovered that lots of folks who work here have “pet rocks” on their desks or counter-tops somewhere.  Some come with significant stories; most, however, are keepsake stones—reminders of enjoyable or important trips.

Have a look at some of these memorial stones:

Mart DeHaan’s rock (from the Lake Michigan shore by South Haven, Michigan).  Mart is the president of RBC.  It’s been a paperweight on his desk for as long as I can remember.  A fascinating stone.

This is one of Fred Hollis’ several rocks.  Fred is a producer and camera man with Day of  Discovery who has been here for ages and has done DOD programs all over the world.  Fred’s away, so I didn’t get the story on this rock, but my guess is that it is from the Dead Sea—with a crust of salt still on it:

Here is another of Fred’s rocks.  I’m pretty sure this is sandstone from Petra in Jordan.  Petra, of course was an ancient fortress in the rocks, carved out of rock, with a name that means “cleft in the rock.”  A fascinating aspect of Petra’s beauty is that the sandstone it is carved out of is striated with many different colors.  I’ll bet with the new baggage fees charged by the airlines that Fred won’t be carrying many rocks home any more!

Here is Ed Rock’s pocket rock.  Really!  Ed picked it up on the eastern shore of Lake Superior at Old Woman Bay years ago, and he’s kept it in his pocket ever since.  Ed has a Harley, and one day he forgot to carry his pocket rock, got on the bike, and without that balance, he fell right over (okay, that’s not true.)

Now Ed Rock’s wife, Carolyn Rock, has three rocks in her office that she keeps as rocks of remembrance from a trip to Colorado.  Ed handles RBC’s copyrights and Carolyn works in graphics and their offices are literally a stone’s throw from each other.  I’m telling the truth here!  The good news is that by all accounts Ed and Carolyn are happily married.  Now if that changed, Carolyn has the advantage: bigger rocks and higher walls on her cubicle!

And of course I have my own rock, a piece of galena (lead ore).  I got it at a rock shop in Cripple Creek, Colorado forty years ago, and have used it as a paperweight since then—in more offices than I can recount!  Cripple Creek is now a glittery casino town, but back then it was just coming out of its ghost-town stage.  We borrowed my brother’s jeep and picked up a couple of good friends who were actually on their honeymoon (now that’s friendship!) and took the rugged, one and a half lane, dirt Gold Camp Road from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek—parts of which were real white-knuckle adventures.  When we got there, we drove all over the old mining roads—until we almost drove into an old mine shaft lurking in the middle of the road.  We saw a dark small hole in the road, got out, and took a look. Leaning over the hole, we were greeted by the feel and sound of a chilly blast of air coming up from who knows how many feet down in the bowels of the mountain.  Four-wheel-drive was not needed at that point—just a quick shift into reverse!

Here’s my rock:

Because the rock has been with me all these year since my first ministry job in 1968, it has been a real Ebenezer stone.  You may remember the lyric from the hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing“:  “Here I raise my Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I’m come.”

There’s no question in my mind that God’s hand has led me for these many years—sometimes willingly and sometimes having to be dragged along like a prospector’s mule.  I praise the Rock of Ages that His will is stronger than mine and that He has the persistence to put me in my place—which is a much better place when He chooses it!

See you outdoors!

Dean

The landscape folks here at RBC have followed a common practice to simplify mowing and keep weeds from growing up along the side of the building: they’ve surrounded the perimeter with stones.  This, of course, makes it very inviting for children who come around—as well as providing this kid with enjoyment as well.  I could never pass up examining a rock pile—especially one made up of gravel nicely rounded by ages of wear in glaciers, streams, and lakes: God’s rock tumblers.  Our four-year-old granddaughter Danika is the stone junkie of the family, but she’s not yet caught sight of the treasure trove that surrounds RBC.  So here you have an organization that’s been preaching about the Rock of Ages for seventy years being ringed about by the rocks of the ages!  Fitting, I’d say.

When I was about eight, I found a wonderful fossil that I was convinced was a prehistoric animal track impressed in sandstone.  I was sure it was going to end up in a museum one day, but alas, I lost it.  Sandstone was actually a very important item for the OAK Boys (Ohlman, Andrews and Kenfield) as we carried out our childhood work  in Hastings.  Most sand stones we found in our area—and we hunted them energetically—were reddish and quite soft.  We used them as sidewalk “chalk.”  But their prime use was to create an amazing transformation: from cowboys to Indians.  We discovered that if you ground them up with a hard rock or hammer and mixed the stone powder with water, you could make body paint.  We’d take the red mud and spread it all over from head to hip and right down to the finger tips, and in a few minutes it would dry.  Carefully brushing off the sand, we found our bodies looking just like we imagined a Sioux or Ojibwa warrior would look.  “Cowboys and Indians” was hard for us to play after that—because we all wanted to be Indians. So it was Indian wars from then on.  My mom shot a picture of us original “transformers” with her prized Argus C3 camera: just one of many adventures of the OAK Boys she’d attempt to record. (I’m still amazed recalling her level of tolerance —learned by having three boys.  She knew what the tub would look like after this Indian washed off all the sandstone residue, but with our being off in the boondocks most summer days, she did get hours of peace.  A good trade-off I’d say—Marge and I having three boys ourselves!)

Having a fascination with rocks, I was both surprised and thrilled to discover that our fifth grade science project was making a rock collection—which beat the fourth grade project of learning the geography of Michigan, including memorizing the names of all its counties.  Though I was surprised to learn that Michigan had a state rock: the Petoskey stone, a fossil coral found around the Lake Michigan shore in the northwest part of the lower peninsula.  I still remember the three basic rock types: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  And all three are in abundance in RBC’s linear rock pile—a virtual glacial esker.

So sometime this summer Dani and I are going to go hunting for treasure along the edge of the RBC building.  I’ve already shown her and her big sister Elle how to take a rock and turn themselves into Indians. Maybe you can make it a point to take a kid rock hounding this summer too.  Before you do, you may want to refresh your old school knowledge with Andrew Alden’s neat Website on geology basics.  You might also check the “Ask a Geologist” page of the Affiliation of Christian Geologists.

See you outdoors,

Dean

One of the reasons that C. S. Lewis continues to be a best-selling author long after his death is that much of what he wrote gains even more significance as the decades advance.  My primary hardback copy of Mere Christianity, for instance, has been referenced so often some of its pages maintain their integrity only with the help of Scotch tape.  Today I was again looking up what Lewis said about the importance of human freedom and the fact that sinful man often uses his freedom for selfish personal gain, and hence causes real harm to be done to others and to the earth (“God’s cosmic temple” a la John Walton).  Here is what Lewis said about such freedom” (from chapter 3, “The Shocking Alternative”):

Of course God knew what would happen if [his "higher creatures"] used their freedom the wrong way: apparently he thought it worth the risk. . . .  If God thinks that this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will—that is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of really great importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings—then we may take it it’s worth paying. [Emphasis mine]

This is important in reference to the commonly heard statement on conservative talk radio that the earth is too big and complex for people to cause significant environmental damage to it or threaten its God-designed ecosystems.  To be blunt, that’s a foolish statement.  The reality is that God made people to be stewards of His creation.  To do that, we have been given powers and mental capacities that are virtually godlike—the point the psalmist David makes: “[The Lord] made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Psa. 8:5).

If we have the creativity and power to make bombs sufficient enough to blow the living world to bits in mere hours, we need to acknowledge that through our oft ill-considered technology and extensive use of the material world over the centuries we also have the power to do extreme harm to the functions of God’s good earth.

In my last post I made reference to the new book by John H. Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, in which he claims that Genesis one is really not about the creation of the material world, but about God’s taking the material world (which was already made) and making it to function.

Fittingly, the last function mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis is the human function—because mankind, the only creature made in God’s image, is the apex of His creation with the privilege and power to “rule” and “subdue” (1:26-31). Secular environmentalists and humanists don’t like to hear that—since they claim that such man-centeredness (anthropomorphism) is what has endangered the planet.  Yet the biblical fact remains.  Walton comments on humankind’s functions (pp 68-69):

All of the rest of creation functions in relationship to humankind, and humankind serves the rest of creation as God’s vice regent.  Among the many things that the image of God may signify and imply, one of them, and probably the main one, is that people are delegated a godlike role (function) in the world where He places them. It has already been mentioned that whereas in the rest of the ancient world creation was set up to serve the gods, a theocentric view, in Genesis, creation is not setup for the benefit of God but for the benefit of humanity—an anthropocentric view.  Thus we can say that humanity is the climax of the creation account.

Another contrast between Genesis and the rest of the ancient Near East is that in the ancient Near East people are created to serve the gods by supplying their needs.  That is, the role of people is to bring all of creation to deity—the focus is from inside creation out to the gods.  In Genesis people represent God to the rest of the creation.

We need to think long and hard about the fact that we “represent God to the rest of the creation.”  By our careless, hasty, and self-centered consumption of the fruit of the creation, we have now come to the point of destroying the fruitfulness of the creation—the “real harm” that Lewis says mankind is free enough to do.  We, followers of Jesus included, have not been doing a very good job in our responsibility to represent God to the rest of creation.  Hence the creation suffers and “waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19).

I used to think that all would happen only at the return of Christ.  But if we are children of God now, there is no reason that we cannot begin to act like children of God now in our relationship to the creation.  That’s why Francis Schaeffer believed that we needed to be engaged now in helping to bring about a “substantial healing” of all the rifts created by the Fall—which, of course, will not be complete until Jesus comes.  Even if one does not accept Schaeffer’s belief, we do understand from Scripture that if we know what is right to do and do not do it, we are acting sinfully.  Caring for creation, to the glory of our Creator, is and always has been one of our key functions.

Well, that’s enough preaching for a while!  I promise to get back to the wonder of creation in my next posts.

See you outdoors!

Dean