The Danger of Feeling Overwhelmed by What God Has Entrusted to You
What God entrusted to us in creation is rather like my radial arm saw: wonderful, filled with potential, and powerful, but with “some assembly required.” Quite a bit of assembly, actually. This truth can encourage us or intimidate us. Encouragement will prevail over intimidation when we remember a few other biblical truths.
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The Surprising Truth of God’s Incomplete Creation
Here’s some life-changing good news. You have been asked by the Creator of the universe to help finish the work he began. God has the capacity, of course, to complete the job without you. But in his grace and providence, God has chosen to delegate to you a significant aspect of his creative and sustaining work.
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What Is Our Purpose? The Cultural Mandate
Genesis 1:28 gives us the very first biblical answers to our defining questions of life. We learn that human beings were created in God’s image so as to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion . . . .” Theologians sometimes refer to this collection of imperatives as the “cultural mandate” (or the “creation mandate”). God created human beings so that we might make, shape, and steward culture.
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An Extraordinary Vision of Human Royalty
If, like me, you’ve been a Christian for a while, you might find the insights of Genesis 1:28 to be obvious. It’s easy for us to assume that the biblical understanding of human life is rather ordinary, shared by most people across the world throughout history.
The truth is strikingly different, however. Many philosophies and religious traditions do not value human life in the mode of Genesis 1
Read PostDo We Have Permission to Junk Up the World?
When I was in college, I used to jog along the Charles River, a scenic waterway separating Cambridge from Boston, Massachusetts. The river was indeed wonderful to observe, but woe to anyone who happened to enter its waters. The Charles was so polluted with factory waste and other kinds of refuse that students were warned never to even wade in it. Should someone happen to fall in, that person was strongly exhorted to take a quick shower and get a tetanus shot (really!). Fish and birds who used the river failed to thrive and most died. It always seemed to me terribly sad that human beings had ruined such a gorgeous river.
Read PostA Prayer for Mother’s Day
For the last several days, I’ve been reflecting on the imperative in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful.”
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Literal Fruitfulness and the Body of Christ
Was I suggesting that people without children cannot experience the fruitfulness God intends for them?
Read PostFurther Reflections on Fruitfulness
According to Genesis 1, being fruitful in the literal sense, that is, making more people to fill the earth, is a central facet of human work.
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What Does It Mean to Be Fruitful?
Today, you and I have the opportunity and responsibility to use well the abilities God has given us so that we might help the world become what God intends it to be.
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You Were Made to Make a Difference
You and I were made to make a difference in the world around us.
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