Journey in the Word: Caring for Creation

Week 2

Read:  Genesis 1: 26, 28

We are exploring the two primary manifestations of human creation: work and marriage.  Both are acts of collaboration with God to achieve the doing of God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.

Whatever details and dimensions are found in our work, the unifying purpose of all work is that it sustains and enriches what God has made.

Stott focuses his meditation on the misunderstanding of the words “rule” and “subdue,” and my reflections today are a follow-up to his remarks.

Rather than limit ourselves to a Hebrew word study to determine what these terms mean, I believe the context of the original creation is equally helpful.

The original description of creation is that it was “without form and void.”  There was an original “chaos” in creation, and it was the Spirit of God hovering over that primal mass which began to bring order, light, and life.

The human task is to use our work as a means through which God can continue to “hover” over creation.  Consequently, our work (regardless of form and function) shares the holy task of bringing order out of chaos—light from darkness—and life from death.  We are to “rule” and “subdue”—not in the sense that fallen humanity consumes and destroys creation, but in the way that God oversaw creation before we were made.