Thoughts on Creation Care

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.  And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.  But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—  if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant."

- Paul's letter to the Collosians 1:15-23 (NIV)

“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”

— St. Augustine (354-430)

“Any error about creation also leads to an error about God.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

“Now if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. …God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.”

— Martin Luther (1483-1546)

“What can be seen on earth points to neither the total absence nor the obvious presence of divinity, but to the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this mark.”

— Blaise Pascal (1623-1620), 

“Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, or even better cultivated. Let him so feed on its fruits that he neither dissipates it by luxury, nor permits it to be marred by neglect. Moreover, let everyone regard himself as the steward of God in all things which he possesses. Then he will neither conduct himself dissolutely, nor corrupt by abuse those things which God requires to be preserved. …The creation is quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and the most abundant furnishings. Everything in it tells us of God.”

— John Calvin (1509-1564)

“True Godliness doesn't turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it, and excites their endeavors to mend it. …We have nothing that we can call our own; no, not our selves: for we are all but Tenants, and at Will, too, of the great Lord of our selves, and the rest of this great farm, the World that we live upon.”

— William Penn (1644-1718)

“They (the creatures) encourage us to imitate Him whose mercy is over all His works. It may enlarge our hearts toward these poor creatures to reflect that not one of them is forgotten in the sight of our Father which is in heaven.”

— John Wesley (1701-1791), 

“We have seen that the Son of God created the world for this very end, to communicate Himself in an image of His own excellency. ... When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous (rain)bow, we behold the adumbrations of His glory and goodness; and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness.”

— Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

“This is my Father’s world,
And to my listening ears
All nature sings,
And round me rings
The music of the spheres.

“This is my Father’s world:
O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong
Seems oft so strong,
God is the Ruler yet.“

— Maltbie D. Babcock (1858-1901)

“The dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness are contrary to the order of creation. …A given culture reveals its understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption… a great deal of educational and cultural work is urgently needed, including the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice…”

— Pope John Paul II (1929-2005)

“Folks, our Lord and Savior put a human face on poverty long before we did. And his concern for the degradation of creation is inextricably linked to his concern for those whose options for life have been severely degraded as well. The poor! So what do we do until He comes? What leadership do we bring? I think we do what He would have done.”

— Bob Seiple, president of World Vision and past president of Eastern College and Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Earth is crammed with heaven
And every bush aflame with God
But only those who see take off their shoes.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet