Caring for our planet, part 1: What does the Bible Say?

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,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

    So God created mankind in his own 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 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.”

Genesis 1:26-28 NIV *Man was to rule over the earth like a king. The Hebrew word is "radah." It's a royal word. Not like a tirade king described in Ezekiel 34:4, but like a humble king described in Psalm 72. 

 

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,      the world, and all who live in it; or he founded it on the seas       and established it on the waters.

Pslam 24:1-2 NIV

 

“‘The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.

Leviticus 25:23 NIV