Creation

An interesting debate was sparked in doctrine class yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to really resolve the issue or give it the attention that it maybe should have been. We were talking about creation and our mandate to care for creation. Someone raised their hand and said the most important thing was that we are giving Jesus to people. Someone else responded that that can be dangerous because we can become arrogant about evangelism, so we shouldn't think that we have to evangelize people. Here are my thoughts.

One, the issue of the environment needing to be cared for over and against the need to care for other humans. I was in college about 3 years ago when that massive Tsunami hit Sri Lanka and other countries. About two weeks later, we had a chapel service where it was discussed. A professor got up and went on for about a half hour on the poor sea turtles that were now in dnager because of all the flooding. Excuse me??? The sea turtles??? To make matters worse, there was a student who was from Sri Lanka and he was disgusted by this chapel, as he sould've been. Forget the turtles, what about the PEOPLE???? When all is said and done, I think my top priority would be the people, not the animals. Not to say that the environment is not an important issue. It is. But there's a time and a plce for worrying about it.

Two, we are called to evangelize. But, if we aren't willing to provide for the physical needs of other people, then we souldn't bother evangelizing. Telling a hungry person that "man cannot live on bread alone" is probably going to fall on deaf ears. How about giving a hungry person some food and saying, "taste and see that the Lord is good."

Three, to say that we shouldn't worry about evangelizing and that we shouldn't think "we have to share Jesus with this person because otherwise they'll never hear about His name" out of fear of arrogance might be a little extreme. Yes, humility should be a huge factor in this, but if we adopt this "I'm not even going to go there" attitude, then we are in danger of ignoring the Great Commission altogether.

Really, all of these issue need to be held in balance and perspective with each other. Thus ends my rant...

In His Mercy.