God Created Us to Manage the Earth
Adam was the first and only man God created. He could not have expected to know automatically what he was supposed to do. So the Lord God had to give him instructions. He told Adam and Eve: 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.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Now all along, the Lord God's motivations, His reason for creating the human race, was management. You could refer to these words as His "management mandate". These words express God's original intent. They show us His original purpose for the planet that we call earth with words both simple and complicated at the same time: simple, in that He wanted to establish His Kingdom rule on earth; complicated, in that He created such a profusion of life that managing it (as Adam found out a little later) was not going to be easy. God has given a big responsibility to a very fallible being.
Keep this in mind, when Adam and Eve rebelled against Him, He did not change the mandate. He only changed the conditions under which it would be performed. We have inherited those conditions and we have also inherited the mandate. For centuries and centuries later, billions of people live on the same planet. Only a fraction of them have ever known anything about God's original intention for them. Instinctively, because they have been made in His image, they know they are supposed to manage something. But, unaware of the One who created them and buffered by endless challenges to their survival and happiness; most of them do not know that this impulse to be managers comes from the Lord God and that He wants them to bring His Kingdom management to this planet in which we live.
Genesis 1:28-30
~~W.R. Luchie
Adam was the first and only man God created. He could not have expected to know automatically what he was supposed to do. So the Lord God had to give him instructions. He told Adam and Eve: 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.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Now all along, the Lord God's motivations, His reason for creating the human race, was management. You could refer to these words as His "management mandate". These words express God's original intent. They show us His original purpose for the planet that we call earth with words both simple and complicated at the same time: simple, in that He wanted to establish His Kingdom rule on earth; complicated, in that He created such a profusion of life that managing it (as Adam found out a little later) was not going to be easy. God has given a big responsibility to a very fallible being.
Keep this in mind, when Adam and Eve rebelled against Him, He did not change the mandate. He only changed the conditions under which it would be performed. We have inherited those conditions and we have also inherited the mandate. For centuries and centuries later, billions of people live on the same planet. Only a fraction of them have ever known anything about God's original intention for them. Instinctively, because they have been made in His image, they know they are supposed to manage something. But, unaware of the One who created them and buffered by endless challenges to their survival and happiness; most of them do not know that this impulse to be managers comes from the Lord God and that He wants them to bring His Kingdom management to this planet in which we live.
Genesis 1:28-30
~~W.R. Luchie
