I’ve had a long love affair with the maple tree.  It started with the three sugar maples that stood in front of our house in Hastings, Michigan.  One of them was a perfect climbing tree that had a particular limb arrangement that made it possible for me to settle into a neat seat with a fine backrest—and far enough out from the trunk that I could bob up and down gently with just slight swings of my legs.  The second tree directly in front of the house was not friendly to climbers: lowest branches too high for me to reach, and the one time I did reach one, it tossed me off and laid me out flat on my back.  The third one was just too big and tall to do much but offer us abundant fall leaves to rake into piles for leaf tumbling and, best of all, leaf burning.

I still remember vividly looking down our street and seeing several neighbors, garden rakes in hand, tending their leaf fires along with us and turning the air “foggy” with wonderfully fragrant leaf smoke.  I understand why cities now have ordinances against leaf burning, but I still miss that old fall ritual.  Marge and I will sometimes take a fall drive into the country and deliberately slow down and open the windows whenever we find that bluish leaf smoke wafting through the cool air—just to create some nostalgia.

Besides offering tough limbs for climbing, the maples, of course, offered their spring sap for the making of syrup.  The nearby town of Vermontville (fittingly named) was famous for its spring maple syrup festival.

In the fall, the maples’ treat is also aesthetic: the flaming glory of its leaves.  Neighborhoods canopied over with green all summer long suddenly reveal subtleties as the chlorophyll production is cut off by lessening daylight—actually by the increasing amount of darkness.  When the green drains away, it leaves behind other pigments that were there all along.  Then the trees and shrubs show their defining fall apparel: brown oaks, yellow ashes, yellow-orange-red sassafras, golden Norway maples, golden-brown elms, burgundy sumacs—and the brilliant red sugar maples.  Because of the glucose content of the sugar maple, the absence of the chlorophyll plus sunlight and cool nights interacts with the sugar in the leaves to make them their brilliant red.

It’s at this time of the year especially that the allusions of the “tree psalms” most speak to my heart and soul (After people, trees are the most mentioned living things in the Bible).

Consider this merry message from Psalm 96:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
Let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
Let the field exult, and everything in it!

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord.
(vss. 11-12 ESV)

All over the countryside in Michigan, October is the month when the silent song of the trees is most joyous—when we are reminded in spectacular fashion that all created things in their own nature respond to their Maker, making the outdoors a giant cathedral echoing with praise.  In this cathedral we do not worship the creation; we join with all its creatures in “manifold witness” singing together a doxology of praise to our great Creator for His never-ending faithfulness.

[Click on the photos to enlarge them.]

See you outdoors!

Dean

One of the fundamental Scripture passages related to mankind’s role on the earth is Psalm 8.  Take a moment to read this short psalm—this time comparing its viewpoint to the viewpoint of the average man on the street:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (ESV) [Wikipedia Sea World photo]

The power of the truth revealed in this psalm is capable of influencing the entire human race by setting its worldview straight: We are not God, but in many ways we have godlike authority and control.  The expression “You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings” could rightly be translated “a little lower than God.”  We are so powerful and influential that practically all the living things of the earth fall under our governorship.  So of all the living creatures on earth, man alone has dominion.  The average man of the street no doubt recognizes that.

But does the average man also understand that being governor of creation means being responsible to God?  Mankind is the responsible species.  This wonderful passage sets for us this worldview: God is the Creator of all that is and as such we give Him the glory (in the beginning and in the end—as demonstrated by the identical wording of first and last verses of the psalm).  God has honored us with and entrusted to us the care and keeping of His precious handiwork.  Hence those of us who believe in God and honor Him as Lord clearly ought to demonstrate that understanding in our dominion over His works.

[Dog photo by Schockwellenreiter]

So when we discover that mankind is driving some of God’s other creatures to extinction, extracting or using “our natural resources” in a manner that threatens the foundations of life on earth (water, air, and soil), fishing out the seas, hoarding the fruit of the earth to keep it from others, and factory-farming our “flocks and herds” like less than soul-less vegetation, what should be the response of those of us who know our God-given responsibility?  For sure it is not aligning ourselves with the irresponsible, nor is it by carelessness about or cruelty toward the other creatures of the earth whose life-sustaining work was given them by the Creator of us and them.

The animals and plants do their work by God’s design and by the instincts He gave them.  We do our work by choice motivated by the understanding of our God-given rulership responsibilities.  The suffering of the creation is not the fault of the non-human creatures; it is our fault—first in our initial sin and then in our continuing self-centered behavior.  So the suffering creation is looking for the day when God’s children will be revealed—and revealed as the responsible caretakers of creation that God intended.  That is indeed the thrust of Paul’s statement in his letter to the Roman Christians:

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:19-23 ESV).

Whether we like it or not, people function as creation’s governor.  Certainly those of us who hold a biblical worldview ought to be demonstrating how that is done in an effective, protective, and compassionate manner.

See you outdoors!

Dean

Sunday morning we had the first hard frost of the season—followed by a warming sun to give us the classic leaf fall in which the leaves seem to leap from the branch and carpet everything below.  The first half hour after sunrise on a frosty morning would put Chicken Little into a virtual panic.  Our Cascade township was indeed the home of a massive leaf cascade.

I was out early enough to feel like it was just me and the Creator enjoying up close the striking beauty created by moist air freezing leaving its lattice work on all vegetation.  Like Job, I was made to understand again that it was not the hand of man who splashed the landscape with such beauty and I could only remain speechless at the wonder:

Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?  “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?  From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? (Job 38:25-29 ESV).

See you outdoors!

Dean

Blackberry

Crabapple

Burdock

Maple leaves

Thistle

Apple sapling

I was moved yesterday by a challenging article written by Christopher Wright that appeared both in Christianity Today and on the site dedicated to the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization that will be taking place in Capetown one year from this month.  Dr. Wright chose as his theme the statement from the original Lausanne Covenant of 1974:  “Evangelization requires the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world”

Though that statement has powerful implications, the phrase that remained undefined in the minds of most who took part in that important congress was “the whole gospel.”  Dr. Wright’s article in part sought to define that phrase.  Among his points is the biblical understanding that Jesus’ atoning death would result not only in providing the means of saving men from sin and death, but would also result in the redemption of the whole cosmos.  On our page labeled “About” you will find that WOC “does not believe that the efforts of the followers of Jesus Christ will somehow make the earth fit for His return. We believe that Jesus will fully redeem, restore, and reunify the sin-damaged earth only at His return. But among our responsibilities in the meantime is the obligation to begin knowing and treating the natural world now in the manner that we expect to know and treat it after the return of Christ.”

Here are some statements from Dr. Wright’s article that articulate further that the “whole gospel” includes the coming restoration of God’s good creation:

The phrase the whole gospel suggests that some versions of the gospel are less than whole—partial, deficient, or (most important) not fully biblical. We must give full weight to all the dimensions of sin and evil that the Bible in both testaments portrays. And we must evangelistically proclaim the glories of God’s redemptive achievement in the Cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth—as God’s victory over evil in all its dimensions. There would be no gospel without the Cross. Indeed, all blessings of the gospel, from personal salvation through Christ’s death in our place to the reconciliation of all creation, flow from the Cross. The Cross stands at the heart of the Lausanne Movement; the key scriptural text for Cape Town 2010 is “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

The great Christ-centered, Cross-centered redemptive truths of the New Testament do not nullify, but rather complete, all that the Old Testament reveals about God’s comprehensive commitment to the wholeness of human life, God’s relentless opposition to all that oppresses, spoils, and diminishes human well-being, and God’s ultimate mission of blessing the nations, destroying all forms of evil, and redeeming his whole creation, for his own supreme glory in Christ.

The gospel as a whole, true to the Bible as a whole, shows us God’s heart for his broken, suffering, wicked world. For the last and the least (socially, culturally, and economically) as well as the lost (spiritually)—not that these can be separated, since human beings are whole persons. For those who are dying eternally in their sins, but also for the causes of their preventably premature dying in this world. For those who are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world, but who also suffer all kinds of other lacks—the landless and homeless, the loveless and limbless, the family-less and state-less. For the creation itself, frustrated in its supreme goal of giving glory to its Creator, and groaning under the onslaught of human greed and violence.

The whole gospel includes . . .

The world story, as God tells it in the Bible, of the world’s origins, history, and ultimate destiny. According to Paul, we are not going to be saved out of the created world, but along with it. But if our Bibles begin at Genesis 3 and end at Revelation 20, we are in danger of missing the point of God’s great story of the redemption of all creation. We will think only of saving fallen sinners from the final judgment—not about living in the present creation as those who, by being in Christ, already bring the transforming values and prophetic truth of the new creation to the here and now.

The world of creation, and our responsibility to the earth God entrusted to us, which God has reconciled to himself through the Cross (Col. 1:20). If the planet was created by Christ, sustained by Christ, and belongs to Christ as his inheritance, the least we can do is to look after it properly. Biblical responsibility for stewardship of the earth should have been an evangelical theme long before the threat of climate change turned it into a matter of self-preservation. [Emphasis mine]

Whether or not we’re convinced that mankind is causing global climate change, we do know that human behavior is causing extensive damage to God’s good earth—and the Church has been culpable in developing the attitude of carelessness toward the creation—a reality we need to repent of before the watching world.  I’m convinced that the evangelism efforts of the Church will continue to be hampered until we adopt the “whole gospel” as it is articulated by Chris Wright.

See you outdoors!

Dean

Fall is the ideal time to teach children about nature—and about nature’s Creator.  While Christian schools can be straight-forward about referencing the Creator, most secular schools cannot.  Home-schoolers, parents, grandparents, and other care givers might want to use the following list of biblical truths as a guide to some good outdoor teaching this fall—maybe starting today! [Photo by Cali2Okie]

The Natural World:

1. It was created by God. (Gen. 1-2; John 1:3; Col. 1:16-17)

2. It is owned by God. (Psa. 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:16, Psa. 104:24)

3. It is loved by God. (Psa 145:17 NIV; Psa. 36:5)

4. It is sustained by God continuously. (Gen. 8:22; Psa. 145:17; Psa. 104, Psa. 36:5-6; Matt. 6:26; Col. 1:17)

5. It was placed under man’s dominion. (Gen. 1:28; Psa. 8:6-8, Heb. 2:8, Psa. 145:13)

6. It was assigned to man for care and servant leadership. (Gen. 2:15)

7. It was altered by sin at the Fall. (Gen. 3:14-19)

8. It was altered again by the Flood. (Gen. 8-9)

9. It provides needs for all people throughout time. (Psa. 104:13-15; Matt 6:25-24; Zech. 10:1)

10. It is considered less valuable than people. (Matt. 6:26)

11. It has been redeemed by Christ. (Rom. 8:18-23; Col. 1:20)

12. It will be restored, reconciled to God, and unified at Christ’s return. (Isa. 11:6-9; Rom. 8:18-23; Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:9-10)

13. It will be assigned its destiny by God, not man. (2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 21:1)

Implications of these biblical truths:

We do not own the earth and can never ultimately “possess” any part of it. When we buy and sell land, we are only assigning temporary care to “owners” who are expected by God to use it carefully, frugally, and justly for His glory. We should not deliberately destroy the land’s capacity to do its assigned work: to produce needed elements (fruit, oxygen, water filtration, moisture, etc.) for the health and survival of all that depend upon it. Our task is stewardship, which acknowledges that we are accountable to the Master for the creation’s health and for how we use its fruit (profit).

Since it was made by God, is sustained by God, is loved by God, and will be restored by God, we must use it with reverent care and respect. We must always be thankful for our parents and their parents for their care of it and be careful to hand it on to our children and their children as little damaged and diminished as we can.

Our worship is of the Creator, not the creation. But, we must also remember that with the astronomical wonders above we “join with all nature in manifold witness to [God's] great faithfulness, mercy, and love!” Mankind is expected to establish communities and cultures upon the earth that use the land and its produce with as little waste and destruction as possible. All creatures are made by God and must be respected as His creation. When we use the earth’s produce, we do it with gratitude and with the understanding that all His creatures, beginning with—but not limited too—mankind, have a right to occupy and make use of their allotted portion of it. As much as possible we should attempt to treat the earth now as we will be expected to treat it at its restoration in the coming Kingdom.

While “our citizenship is in heaven,” we cannot forget, as T.S. Eliot reminds us, that such citizenship “is our model and type for our citizenship below.” Children need to know that the earth we see now is not like it was at the creation (because of the Fall, the Curse, the Flood, and the ravages of time), and it is not now what it will be at the restoration (the “peaceable kingdom” of shalom). Nonetheless, we also must show them how it still demonstrates to us the power, divinity, beauty, and awesome creative nature of God. For that reason alone, we should tend faithfully to our stewardship tasks.

Motivate children to think of their use of the earth as a creative school project that will be graded by the divine Teacher at the end.  And if children offer up their creative work as art to the Heavenly Father, they can know that regardless of how imperfect and simple it is, He will post it on His fridge.

See you outdoors!

Dean

[Acorn photo by Amanda *Bake It Pretty*]

[Discover other issues and ideas related to children and the environment on the "Wonder Kids" page accessed from the top menu bar---or here.]