This is another slides I made for homeroom morning devotion back in SMN 2019.

1. The big narrative:
What is the Christian view
of creation, nature, and
the environment?

2. God is the creator and creation
belongs to Him.

3. The whole bedrock of environmental
care is that God is the creator of
heaven and earth.

4. Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth.

5. The whole creation is an expression of
God, so as we begin to understand the
creation we can begin to get an idea of
the creator.

6. That is why the apostle Paul declares
that God’s eternal qualities can be
understood from what He has made.

7. Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s
invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine
nature—have been clearly seen, being
understood from what has been made, so that
people are without excuse.

8. However, God is not to be identified
with his creation: God is distinct from,
and yet God is unceasingly involved in
his creation.

9. He consistently meets us where we
live, through his gifts from the earth.

10. We are intimately related with the rest
of creation, for we are formed from
the earth.

11. Psalm 24 states that the whole world
belongs to God and to Him alone.

12. Psalms 24:1
The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the
world, and all who live in it.

13. Created in the image and likeness of
God, human beings have been
entrusted with the caring of God’s
creation.

14. Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our
image, in our likeness, so that they may rule
over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals, and
over all the creatures that move along the
ground.”

15. Genesis 1:27
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

16. Genesis 1:28
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful
and increase in number; fill the earth and
subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the
birds in the sky and over every living creature
that moves on the ground.”

17. We are called as stewards of the
earth.

18. The opening chapters of Genesis show
that humanity’s relationship with the
rest of creation is ambiguous: we are
part of it and we are above it.

19. We are part of the earth and we are to
rule over it.

20. We are creatures of God and made in
the image of God.

21. We should not reduce humanity to
pure nature, nor should we deify
humanity.

22. Christianity is neither merely
anthropocentric (human-centered),
nor merely bio-centric (environment-
centered): it is primarily theocentric
(God-centred).

23. Our solidarity with the rest of the
creation should serve to keep us
from an oppressive rulership.

24. Dominion is not a dictatorial rulership,
we are not lords over creation: it is a
delegated rulership, a rulership that is
accountable.

25. As God’s stewards of creation, we
will be called to account for how
we have treated his earth.

26. God has given humankind a full
responsibility of handling the
caring of his creation.

27. For the realization of this purpose,
the Lord God took the man and put
him in the Garden of Eden to work
it and to take care of it.

28. In other words, man was there as a
steward of the garden.

29. A steward is someone who handles
affairs for someone else, but will
give a full accounting for his
actions to the owner of the affairs.

30. The picture here is that God is the
owner of the affairs, meaning the
world, and man is the steward
appointed to handle the caring of it.