Tuesday, March 2, 2010

All Creatures... Pt 3

In this post we are continuing in our discussion of how we as Christians should be interacting with God's creation. We all understand that "the Earth is the LORD's, and everything in it" (Ps. 24:1, 50:12; 1Cor.10:26). And yet, at the same time, God has given humanity the authority and responsibility to rule over His creation (Gen.1 & 9).

We usually call this principle "stewardship", and in the specific stewardship relationship we have with creation I have called this "geo-stewardship."

What does this look like?
How is this similar/dissimilar to the contemporary, secular "environmentalist" movement?

Today we look at the Mosaic Law.

I'm going to start with the covenant that God makes with Moses and the people of Israel. I'm starting here because in my last post we saw how God included creation in His covenant with Noah. In the Mosaic Covenant we see the same thing. Creation both participates and acts as a witness to the covenant:

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (ESV) "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them." (also see 4:26 & 31:28)

[What does it mean that creation is a witness to our Covenant relationship with God?]

And in Leviticus 26 we see that creation is involved in carrying out both the blessings of obedience to the covenant (vs. 6) and the curses of disobedience (vs. 22).

Creation itself is both a witness and an agent in God's covenant with His people.

But creation is also a participant in the covenant! We see this most readily in the Sabbath and Jubilee laws. I will include only one here due to length:

Leviticus 25:1-7 (ESV) "The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, "Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, and for your cattle and for the wild animals that are in your land: all its yield shall be for food" (see also: 26:34-35, etc).

The land observes a Sabbath to the Lord? Interesting. Not only that, but the fruits of the Sabbath year go to the benefit of all creation: Jew & gentile, slave & free, male & female (yes I am intentionally using the language of Gal.3:28), mankind & animal.

In the OT Law, where there is Sabbath there is a reuniting of all of creation; a reminder of what Eden was like and a foreshadowing of New Creation to come!

[In our world today what might this Sabbath unity look like?]

But some of my favourite "eco-verses" :) in the Torah are the ones that provide minute detail:

Deuteronomy 22:6-7 (ESV) "If you come across a bird's nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long."

In the hunting world we call principles like this "conservation." Notice that the Israelite's "wellness" is at least partially dependent upon conservation.

And it's not just talking about animals either:

Deuteronomy 20:19 (ESV) "When you besiege a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them. You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you?"

Wow! Don't you just love that last statement?!

So, what do you think?
How do all of these pieces come together so far?
How might we apply these principles in today's world?

Next Post: Wisdom/Poetry/Prophets

9 comments:

Lisa Sawatzky said...

I made note of that tree verse in Deuteronomy when I read through it. It really made me think of C.S. Lewis and the trees that could move and communicate. I guess Tolkien does the same thing in his books, but you get the point. I just thought it was really cool. God takes the creation he has made into consideration when speaking with his people. I like it.

Unknown said...

Tim I am trying to understand how you can use a verse regarding the Sabbath to advance the argument for "geo-stewardship", or earth-care....while not addressing the fact that keeping the Sabbath was a commandment given to man? WE are to keep the Sabbath, not the earth! IF it were the earth keeping the Sabbath, NOTHING would grow in the 7th year. This is a directive given to MANKIND to "give a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord". Here is this commandment nestled amongst 612 other commandments, which the modern evangelical church does not follow. Let it not be! How do we choose to follow this one and none of the others? The truth is, we should be following all the commandments! I responded earlier that the number one directive of Lucis Trust (formerly Lucifer Trust)is the promotion of "earth-stewardship". Lucis Trust is a part of the United Nations........so my concern is that if the largest satanic, luciferian organization in the world...the United Nations, and it's offspring, Lucis Trust, are promoting the idea of earth-stewardship, and our actions and ideas are in line with their actions and ideas, then that is trying to unite darkness with Light. Darkness has no unity with light! 2 John 4-6 says "I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you dear lady - not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning - that we love one another. And THIS is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it." We MUST allow the actions of these types of organizations determine our actions....it must send us back to the scriptures so that we can be sure our actions have NO UNITY with their actions.
We are already bombarded from every concievable angle with earth-care directives. I think it is already assumed by most everyone(perhaps for the wrong reasons), that "geo-stewardship" is critical for every inhabitant of the earth before we ever walk through the doors of a church or open up our bibles. But the Bible speaks of caring for the earth amongst all the rest of His commandments. So I ask you and everyone reading....what would satan have to gain from the promotion of "earth-stewardship" or "geo-stewardship" outside the promotion of all the other commandments we have been given?

Timothy Braun said...

Carey, you are exactly right in saying that it is mankind that has to carry out the Sabbath laws. In order for the land to "keep a Sabbath to the Lord" it is dependent on mankind (as the divinely appointed rulers/stewards of the land) to uphold that Law. When they do we see that all of creation benefits. In order for creation to be what God originally intended it to be it requires that mankind be what we were originally intended to be (again, see Rom.8:18-25 for this interdependent relationship).

As for evangelicals and the Sabbath today, most people see Jesus' teaching on the Sabbath as moving away from a static day that is observed "legalistically / religiously" to using the Sabbath to serve man's needs (Mt. 12:8-14; Mk.2:27-28). Thus it is based on Jesus' teachings that the "Christian" Sabbath is celebrated on "the Lord's day" (the NT uses this phrase in contrast with Sabbath to describe the first day of the week on which Jesus was resurrected) rather than the Jewish Sabbath. On top of this, when we read Acts 15 and see that the majority of Jewish Law is not imposed upon gentiles we recognize an authoritative amendment to the Jewish Sabbath Law. And so most Christians today view it as important to observe "a" Sabbath rather than "the" Sabbath. Admittedly, this may be more of a traditional Christian interpretation of scripture than an explicitly Biblical command.

As Christians we live under and have been freed by "the law of the Spirit of life." We no longer live under the Jewish Law "of sin and death" (Rom.8:1-4; also see Gal. 5:1 and the entire book of Hebrews).

Again, I cautiously agree with you that we can't blindly align ourselves with causes with questionable motives. However I find that your approach can provide inconsistent results at best. Do we simply not care for the poor because other non-Christian organizations also care for them? Of course not! Caring for the poor is clearly commanded in both the OT & NT. Do we not advocate for peace because other people with different motives also advocate for peace? Of course not! We are followers of the Prince of Peace! Do we not pray for those who are sick because they might also have a non-Christian doctor? ... Our differences in beliefs may mean that we don't unite with them (as should certainly be the case with LT) but that doesn't mean that their actions hand-cuff us.

EVIL CANNOT & MUST NOT HOLD GOOD RANSOM. (Rom. 12:21)

We will do good because our Father is good and has commanded us to do good.

The only way that I can see Satan benefiting from Christians caring for God's creation is if they did it exclusively (ie. omitting other essentials such as Mt.28's "great commission" from their lifestyles). Then one could rightly claim "DISTRACTION!" However, if they did it in this exclusive manner they couldn't really be called "Christians" could they?

Unknown said...

Tim thanks for your phone call. Could you direct me to the scripture you were referring to when you stated that jesus' disciples did not observe the Sabbath on the same day as the Jews observed the Sabbath? Thanks

Timothy Braun said...

If you're asking for a "thou shalt turn Saturday into Sunday" :) of course it's not there. Like I said this is based on early hints in scripture (see below) and the histories of the early Church.

The practice of using Sunday as our "Sabbath" is usually based on the fact that, (as I mentioned above with sections from Mt, Mk) of the 10 commandments, there are only two which Jesus doesn't expressly endorse: Sabbath and graven images.

Speculation on His reasons aside, Jesus seems to amend how Sabbath should be dealt with. On top of this, what we then see is the Apostolic Church beginning to gather for worship "on the first day of the week." see: Acts 20:7; 1Cor 16:2; Rev. 1:10. Of course, this is because this is Resurrection Day (see all 4 resurrection accounts).

Unknown said...

The Sabbath was meant to be a sign between Yah and his people, an everlasting covenant, for Jew and Greek alike. Psalm 89:34 says "I shall not profane My covenant, Neither would i change what has gone out from my lips."
The Messiah said that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Our salvation is not based on our ability to keep the commandments, but our love for Yah is evident in our desire to keep the commandments. We are freed from the law of sin and death because that is satan's domain. To say that the Messiah came to change the commandments is saying that Yah was lying..or oops! He made a mistake and has now sent His son to fix it.
Matt 5:17-19 "Do not think that I came to annul the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to annul, but to fulfill. Truly I say to you, Until the heavens and the earth pass away, in no way shall one iota or one tittle pass away from the Law until all comes to pass. Whoever then shall break one of these commandments, the least, and shall teach men so, he shall be caled least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, this one shall be call great in the kingdom of the Heavens."
I cannot find any support whatsoever for picking and choosing a Sabbath.

Timothy Braun said...

I'd really rather not go off on a HUGE tangent about what relation/interaction Jesus' New Covenant has with the Old. If you'd like to do that we can do that privately or at later time when that is our topic.

Let's get back on topic: So far we've seen Genesis & the Mosaic Law. According to what we've seen so far how is this similar/different from contemporary environmentalism?

Unknown said...

Your blog post asks "So what do you think", and I have been telling you what I think. I am sorry if you disagree with my perspective or think it's off topic, but clearly we are both speaking of both the Law and the Sabbath. This post raises the issue of a Sabbath for the Earth. I guess I was able to anticipate where your line of thinking would take us with your post of "All Creatures of our God and King". I really, really want to know why you feel that we have a "mandate" for geo-stewardship based on "OT Law" if you believe that Jesus has freed us from the Law?

Timothy Braun said...

Fair enough. As long as we're staying zeroed in on the topic at hand and not starting a long debate about the Mosaic Law.

The general view is that when Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant He put aside certain aspects of the Law (ie. circumcision) and retained others (ie. honour your father and mother). And so, as we travel step-by-step through the scriptures my hope is to discover if "geo-stewardship" is "put aside" or "retained" in the New Covenant.

Obviously you know what my "hypothesis" or "thesis" is. However, if you've read any of my previous posts you'll also know that sometimes, at the end of the day, I have to tweek or adapt my thesis to align with what we discover.

As for what Jesus says about this topic... we'll get there when we get there. If we jump too far ahead without the right foundations we're bound to get the wrong conclusions.

For now, do we agree that some form of "geo-stewardship" is evident in the Pentateuch?