God's Green Book

Charlotte Sleigh

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780281062065
• eBook ISBN: 9780281065295
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Bible is bursting with teaching about nature: how God created it, how humans fit into it, and how it is part of his big story of justice, love and redemption. But what does the Bible have to say about the environmental issues that face us? These seven Bible studies explore such questions as: How well rooted are you in God's creation? Can you take your ethics to the shops? Does what you eat really make a difference? Is an environmentally friendly lifestyle just too painful to contemplate? Each Bible study is accompanied by a variety of lively and engaging activities, from the practical to the reflective. Each one will inspire and encourage you to lead a greener, more fulfilling life that respects and honours God's awesome creation.

1

God’s character revealed in creation

Overview

God’s character is revealed in all the things he created. The creation story tells of the abundance and sheer joy of his creativity. Within this context, we will start to look at our response to his creation, as people who are made creative in his image.

Bible study: Genesis 1.1—2.3

Getting started

The Genesis account tells of the seven days in which God made Creation. It is a story we all think we know – but do we? Either individually or in pairs, write down the timetable of creation as you remember it. What was created on which day?

Now read Genesis 1.1—2.3.

How accurate was your timetable? What differences were there from the Genesis account? How might these differences change assumptions about how we see creation? Think about which parts of creation get a day to themselves, and which parts share a day.

Bible study questions

1 What does the creation account tell us about God’s character? If you are stuck for ideas, the following questions help draw out some relevant themes.

(a) What are the words that reflect the abundance of creation in verses 20–23?

(b) What phrases are repeated throughout the entire story? How do they highlight God’s orderliness, his purposefulness and his pleasure?

(c) What characteristic of God comes through in verses 29–30? Compare it with God’s provision as revealed in Jesus’ miracle of Matthew 14.19–20.

2 If you know a person’s character, you can guess their motivations. Building on the elements of God’s character that emerge from the account in Genesis 1.1—2.3 (question 1), what clues are there about why God created the universe?

3 We are created in God’s image, and so we share his creativity. Many acts are creative, and it is a great mistake to consider ourselves uncreative if we don’t do things like write poetry or paint pictures. Fixing a car, decorating a house, raising children, thinking of something to cook every day – all these are creative acts that echo God’s creativity. In pairs, try the following activity:

(a) Describe a time when you have been creative. Then think about how in doing so you were showing some of the characteristics of God you’ve mentioned so far.

(b) Once everyone has had a chance to answer, ask the following question:

Describe how someone might damage or vandalize your creation – or that of the person you are paired up with. How would you feel about what you had created? How would you feel about the person who damaged it?

4 As Christians we are called to honour God. What obligation do we have towards God’s creation?

5 How are we called to exercise our God-given creativity? Think about how we treat other people and about how we treat the natural world, as all these are loved and intended parts of God’s creation.

6 The more we understand and appreciate God’s goodness, abundance and majesty, the better we are able to worship him. Do we therefore have any obligation to find out more about God’s creation and our relationship with it?

Taking it further …

Get creative and sow God’s beauty where there is only neglect and ugliness. Learn more about how God sees his creation, including humans.

If we look with an open heart, we can find God throughout creation.

Astound yourself with the complexity, weirdness and scale of God’s creation.

God can be seen through all of creation, but it is God, rather than created things, that we should be worshipping.

According to the Genesis account, humans were given ‘dominion’ over the earth, to rule over it and subdue it. Doesn’t that mean we can do what we want with creation?

Pointers for prayer

Praise God for the abundance of his creation, and for the pleasure that he takes in it. Pray that God will open your eyes to see the beauty and detail of what he has made and to share his pleasure in it. Thank God for the fact that we are made creative in his image, and pray that he will develop this gift in you so that your creativity, like his, brings life to the world and its people.

Sow a seed

Get creative and sow God’s beauty where there is only neglect and ugliness. Learn more about how God sees his creation, including humans.

Take a packet of native wild flower seeds, available from any garden centre, and sow them together as a group in a patch of waste ground. Ideally, find somewhere near to where your group meets so you can go back and see how they are transforming the area you’ve chosen. If they grow, they will attract bees, butterflies and other insects. Water them from time to time if you can.

Sowing a seed teaches us about God’s creation because it is a risky business. If your seeds bloom, think about how God rejoices over a creation, made in love, as it blossoms. If the flowers die, or get dug up, or blitzed with weedkiller, think about how God feels when his love is rejected and trampled on.

God’s creation is love laid down where we walk, strong and vulnerable in equal measure. His love is a wild flower blooming on waste ground.

If you want to see how other people have got on with this activity look up www.guerrillagardening.org

‘The divine game of Pinzatski’

If we look with an open heart, we can find God throughout creation.

Everybody loves a story. Take a risk: ask your group to sit back for ten minutes, and read aloud ‘The divine game of Pinzatski’, a moving story about finding the character of God in creation.

The divine game of Pinzatski

A curious and entertaining game was played by Ellen Pinzatski and her husband. They only played it once a year and then only when they were camped out far in the mountains by a silent turquoise lake they had named Infrequent. The game consisted of one of them pointing out a natural object, a moss-swaddled cedar stump or a high and voluminous cloud formation, and the other stating, to the best of their ability, what characteristic of God was expressed in that object. The idea for the game had arisen from Paul’s statement in Romans: ‘Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.’ No sort of score was kept, and there were no rules, except that the person interpreting the natural object had to be able to explain to the other, if it was not patently obvious, ho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright
• Table of contents
• About the authors
• Introduction
• 1. God’s character revealed in creation
• 2. Give us this day our daily bread
• 3. What I do with my portion affects you
• 4. God’s ecology
• 5. The land mourns
• 6. The land rejoices
• 7. Life in abundance