Earth Matters
Engaging with Scripture
Blue journey resources can be used individually or in a group as part of your journey through the house or on their own if you want to design a day of prayer or a service to think about the fifth mark of mission: to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the earth.
In this space, passages from Scripture are offered for study, together with some questions to think about. There are more suggestions for other places to explore for engagement with the Bible on matters of ecology and environment at the end of this resource.
John
Genesis 1. 26-31
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Then God said, See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning— the sixth day.
- Why do you think God created the earth and everything in it?
- What do you think is meant by the words ‘dominion’ and ‘subdue’ in this passage?
- How is creation to respond to God?
- How do you think God feels about the creation from this passage?