Creation Care and Stewardship

Today's Reading

Read Genesis 1:28: "And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'"

Then read Genesis 2:15: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it."

Reflection

The creation care debate is often framed as a conflict between two camps: those who prioritize economic development and human industry, and those who prioritize environmental protection and conservation. Each camp gravitates toward a different Genesis text. And the Bible, as usual, insists on both.

Genesis 1:28 is sometimes called the "dominion mandate" or the "cultural mandate." God commands humanity to fill the earth, subdue it, and exercise dominion over all living things. This is the foundation for human civilization — agriculture, technology, science, medicine, art. We are not passive observers of nature; we are called to develop creation's potential, harness its resources, and build cultures that reflect God's creativity. Those who emphasize the dignity of human labor and the legitimacy of economic development are drawing on a genuine biblical theme.

Genesis 2:15 adds a critical counterweight. The same God who commanded dominion also placed the first human in a garden "to work it and keep it." The Hebrew word shamar — to keep, to guard, to protect — is the same word used later to describe the priestly duty of guarding the tabernacle. Humanity's relationship to creation is not that of an owner doing as he pleases but that of a priest-guardian tending what belongs to God.

Francis Schaeffer — hardly a figure of the political left — saw this clearly. In Pollution and the Death of Man, written in 1970, he argued that Christians had a profound theological basis for creation care: "The earth is the Lord's, and the dominion he gave to humanity is the dominion of a steward, not a tyrant. We are to develop creation's potential and also to protect its integrity." Schaeffer criticized Christians who treated the natural world as disposable, calling it a failure of theology, not just policy.

J.I. Packer reinforced this principle: "We do not own the world, and our dominion over nature is not that of a self-pleasing exploiter but that of an appointed steward." A steward manages someone else's property according to the owner's wishes. The earth belongs to God (Psalm 24:1), and he has entrusted it to us — not to plunder but to cultivate and protect.

The conservative concern that environmental policy can become a vehicle for government overreach is not baseless. The progressive concern that unchecked industrial exploitation destroys communities and ecosystems is not baseless either. But the biblical starting point is not policy — it is theology. The earth is the Lord's. We are stewards. Both development and conservation flow from that single reality.

Going Deeper

What would it look like to take both Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 2:15 seriously in your own life? Stewardship is not a partisan issue — it is a creation mandate. Consider your consumption habits, your relationship to the natural world, and your responsibility to future generations. How does the knowledge that God owns the earth change the way you live on it?