Pastor John, here's a question from Michael in St. Paul. He asks, "What is the Christians' responsibility to creation?" And I'll add another common question into this discussion. If the Apostle Peter says that this world is going to burn up, why should Christians care at all about creation today? I like the question, and I've been tempted more than once, and several people have asked me to write a short book on creation care.

Maybe I'll do it someday, but here's what I would say in essence. There are different approaches for justifying serious concern and care for creation and not treating it as trash and doing things with it and for it that make it what God wants it to be. And one is to approach Genesis 1, where we're created to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and bring it under dominion.

So the whole theology of dominion--man has dominion over the earth, and that would mean he's a steward of it. He should govern it and control it and use it for good purposes. And so God's given him a responsibility right in the very beginning of the Bible not to misuse, but to care for.

A second approach would be that God delights in the earth. He made nature, and you've got these Psalms like Psalm 104, where he--you made Leviathan to play in the ocean. It's as if God simply delighted in the beauty of creation and all of its infinite variety and wisdom you have made them all.

And if God has created it in beauty and delights in it, who are we not to delight in it and not to care for it? And that's the second way. The third way is the way I function. All those are valid, but they don't answer the essential bottom-line question for me.

If you ask me, "Why do you recycle?" Which we do. "Why do you want a smaller carbon footprint?" Which we do. "Why do you buy a non-gas guzzling car? Why do you make little efforts to try to be active in creation care?" And the answer is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." The person who says, quoting Peter, "This is all gonna burn up, so why should we care for it?" It's like a person who says, "My house is gonna burn down in 30 years, so I'm not gonna paint it tomorrow." I mean, it's not loving towards your kids.

If you'd like your kids to have this house, or if you're gonna sell the house and give some money to the church, to your kids, or whatever, you don't let the final destruction of your house someday keep you from taking care of it now so that you can enjoy it, and they can enjoy it, or you could sell it for a good price and give the money to a good cause.

That's just nonsense. And so it is with the world. I think it's better to emphasize not that the world's going to be burned up, but the world's going to be remade. I think that passage in 2 Peter does not mean burning to destruction, but burning in refinement, and that the new heavens and the new earth are in continuity with this heaven and this earth, and that we will know our precious planet in the new heavens and the new earth.

But see, that kind of argument for why we should take care of it just doesn't cut it with most people, and doesn't with me either. What really cuts it with me is, do you love people? Do you love the people that are going to drink the water that you're pouring the garbage into the river of?

Do you love the people that are going to not have... I'm thinking of Kenya right now, and we have good friends who are in creation care in Kenya, and they bemoan the deforestation and the slash-and-burn approach towards farming that is ruining all kinds of futures for people. It's a beautiful land.

It would work if they could learn how to manage the farming so that the land is not destroyed for the coming generations. That's just pure love your neighbor as you love yourself. How big of a tragedy is it for someone to care for creation, to protect wildlife, to protect a forest, but not to see the beauty of God in that creation?

I mean, how big of a tragedy is that, to seek to care for creation but not to see the divine beauty through it? For them personally, it's an infinite tragedy, because if you don't know God, you lose everything. For the world, God will turn that for good. I mean, if they preserve parks, and if they preserve clean water, and if they preserve natural habitats, many people are going to benefit the way, hopefully, they ought to benefit.

But for the person who is engaged in that, or any other good deed for that matter, without doing it for Christ's sake, is a great tragedy, because God made us to do everything we do for his glory, and in dependence on his power, and in love for his Son, and when we try to do right things without any dependence on Christ or for Christ's glory, we are contradicting the very reason for which we're made.

Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. If you have a question for Pastor John, please send it to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Please include your first name and your hometown. You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at desiringgod.org.

I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.