Being a Creation Steward means recognising your God-given authority over the Earth and fulfilling the duty of care towards it that comes with your authority. It is inseparable from Creation Care, and the two concepts go hand in hand with one another.
A quick recap, if you didn’t catch the first post, Creation Care is the worshipful act of caring for the environment as dictated by God’s word, and it is something you do because you are a Creation Steward. So, let’s dive in and explore what a Creation Steward actually is.
Like Creation Care, the idea of being a Creation Steward is rooted in Genesis 1:26 and 28, which say:
Genesis 1:26 NKJV
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:28 NKJV
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Dominion in these two verses is the Hebrew word râdâh (pronounced: raw-daw’), and it means to subjugate, rule, or reign over. Likewise, the Hebrew word for subdue used in verse 28 is kâbash (pronounced kaw-bash’), and it means to bring into subjection or, alternatively, control.
In the post on Creation Care, I explained that this was not meant to be a tyrannical or exploitative rule over the Earth but one of care in which we serve the Lord by serving and caring for the Earth. In this post, I want to explore that idea in more depth.
In the 25 verses râdâh appears in, it is most often translated as ‘rule’. One of those verses is Ezekiel 34:4, which says:
Ezekiel 34:4 NKJV
The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost; but with force and cruelty you have ruled them.
Here God is admonishing the rulers of Israel through the prophet Ezekiel for having neglected and mistreated His people. They had a duty of care towards them as a result of the authority they’d been given by God, but not only did they neglect it, according to verses 2-3, they did so at the people’s expense.
In verse 2, we are told:
Ezekiel 34:2 NKJV
You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock.
Essentially, they have taken the best for themselves instead of prioritising God’s people as they were supposed to do; and that’s the crux of the matter, the people they were ruling over did not belong to them, but to God and yet they neglected them in favour of themselves and, to add insult to injury, treated them harshly. In other words, they were not good stewards.
Before we go any further, let us quickly define what a steward is. A steward is a person who is, according to the Oxford dictionary, ‘employed to manage another’s property, especially a large house or estate.’ Other definitions that I found interesting, also from the Oxford dictionary, were:
An official who controls the domestic affairs of a household, supervising the service of his master’s table, directing the domestics, and regulating household expenditure;
A servant of a college who is charged with the duty of catering. Also, the head servant of a club or similar institution, who has control of the other servants.
An officer in a ship who, under the direction of the captain or the purser, keeps the stores and arranges for the serving of meals; now applied to any attendant who waits upon the passengers, often with a defining word indicating rank or special function.
One employed on a train to serve meals, drinks, etc., to passengers and to attend to other needs. Also, one with similar duties on a motor coach or aeroplane.
You’ve likely figured out where I’m going with this, but I’ll say it plain anyway: we are stewards of God put on the Earth to manage and serve His creation and those He blesses us with (be they our own children or a congregation).
How do I know we are meant to steward creation? Because in Genesis 1:26 and 28 God confers on us authority over the Earth just as a king confers authority on a person to be chief servant and therefore steward of his household (this is evidenced in Genesis 2:15).
Throughout scripture, God makes clear what He expects from His stewards. We see in Ezekiel 34 that God expects us, His stewards, to treat what is His with kindness and love. He expects us to tend to their needs and place them before ourselves. In this case, the stewards were meant to care for His people and place them before themselves, something they failed to do.
Again and again, God reveals His expectations for His stewards. In Jeremiah 23, God says:
Jeremiah 23:1-2 NKJV
1 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the Lord.
Much like the shepherds in Ezekiel, the shepherds (or stewards) God is speaking to through the prophet Jeremiah have cruelly treated and neglected God’s people. They have not attended to them, and this has greatly displeased God, so much so that in verse 4, we are told:
Jeremiah 23:4 NKJV
“I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the Lord.
Due to their misconduct, they are removed from their positions as shepherds (or stewards) over Israel in favour of those who will treat them as God desires and expects them to be treated. Other instances where we see this same thing happen include Zechariah 11:17 and Isaiah 56:11, and that’s just the Old Testament.
We cannot forget the many moments Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes. Take, for example, Luke 11:42 where Jesus says:
Luke 11:42 NKJV
“But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
Jesus makes clear here that tithing is not wrong, but by neglecting justice and the love of God, the Pharisees have made their tithing of no effect. What they failed to understand was that tithing is an outworking of love, not a stand-alone act, and as Apostle Paul famously says in 1 Corinthians 13, if you do not have love, it profits you nothing.
Tithing for the sake of tithing and not for the love of God and reverence for Him and His ways will profit you nothing; and the justice Jesus is talking about there is really also referring to love.
As spiritual leaders of the people and keepers of the law, the Pharisees were supposed to steward the people of Israel, tend to them, and champion their causes. Instead, they passed by justice and the love of God, loving the law more at the expense of the people, which in turn made them bad stewards.
This call to love and justice is something seen throughout the bible. We are to walk in love and do justice, championing the causes of those who are voiceless and oppressed.
In Psalms 82, Asaph makes a plea for justice, saying in verses 2-4:
Psalms 82:2-4 NKJV
2 How long will you judge unjustly,
And show partiality to the wicked?
Selah
3 Defend the poor and fatherless;
Do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy;
Free them from the hand of the wicked.
The word Selah means reflect on the words just spoken, and so Asaph is asking the judges (or the stewards) to seriously reflect on their conduct and how it is impacting those who actually need them.
This is made even clearer in the following words he speaks when he calls for them to defend, deliver, and do justice to the poor, fatherless, needy, and afflicted. This message is echoed throughout the bible and one Christians know well. It can be seen in the following verses:
Old Testament
- Proverbs 23:10-11
- Isaiah 1:17
- Jeremiah 22:3
- Zechariah 7:9-10
New Testament
- Luke 3:11
- Romans 12:13
- James 1:27
- 1 John 3:17
This is far from an exhaustive list, and that fact tells us just how much God expects us, His stewards, to care for the most vulnerable in our societies, who also happen to be the most affected by climate change, but more on that in the next post.
So, what we have seen so far is that for us to be good stewards, God requires us to steward those He puts under us as well as those in need with the utmost love, compassion, and care. He also expects us to defend them from anything that may cause them harm and champion their causes to those in positions of authority who can make the necessary changes (if we ourselves are not in those positions of authority).
This does not just apply to His people but also His things, from His Words to His Treasures to His House. In 2 Chronicles 36:15-16, we are told:
2 Chronicles 36:15-16 NKJV
15 And the Lord God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. 16 But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.
Their lack of respect towards God’s words caused their downfall. If they had loved God and therefore loved His words, then the calamity that befell them would have been avoided; instead, they saw only a man instead of their God, who sent the man and mocked and scoffed at him.
It is also not wise to make light of God’s things. In 2 Chronicles 28:21, King Ahaz, in a desperate attempt to get the King of Assyria to help him against the nations that kept attacking his land and people, deeply disrespects God’s things:
2 Chronicles 28:21 NKJV
For Ahaz took part of the treasures from the house of the Lord, from the house of the king, and from the leaders, and he gave it to the king of Assyria; but he did not help him.
Instead of going to God as he should have done, he instead took precious treasures from the Holy place in the land, as well as the highest places of office and gave them to a man who, in the end, didn’t even help him. This was bad, but what sealed Ahaz’s fate was what he went on to do.
2 Chronicles 28:24 NKJV
So Ahaz gathered the articles of the house of God, cut in pieces the articles of the house of God, shut up the doors of the house of the Lord, and made for himself altars in every corner of Jerusalem.
Notice how the Bible keeps reiterating that these were ‘the articles of the house of God’? This was a serious offence. God’s things are holy, and Ahaz had no business handling them however he saw fit.
God had set out detailed instructions for their creation and their purpose. In doing what he did, Ahaz disrespected God’s word and God Himself. It was so bad that even though sin was rife amongst the land, when Ahaz died the people ‘did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel.’ (2 Chro 28:27 NKJV)
It is not good to disrespect God’s words or God’s things, and it’s especially not good to disrespect His house. In John 2:15-16, we are told:
John 2:15-16 NKJV
15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said of those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!”
In Matthew, it says, ‘den of thieves’ instead of ‘house of merchandise’. Essentially, they had disrespected God’s Word and, therefore, His House. They hadn’t treated it with the necessary and expected honour, care, or love a good steward is supposed to show, and Jesus drove them out for it.
So, what am I saying? Are we going to face calamity because of how we steward the Earth? Well, the news definitely has some thoughts on that, not all of them good. However, I tell you none of this to scare you, for there is still hope! There’s always hope, Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that much.
We know God cares about creation. In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us how God cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field – making sure they have all they need. In the latter chapters of Job, we see the care with which God created creation, and in Romans 8, we are told:
Romans 8:20-22
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now.
God subjected creation to this futility with the confident expectation that our liberation at the second coming of Christ would also liberate the Earth and all its inhabitants. This shows His love for His creation and, therefore, the love He expects us to show towards it. He wants us to have an active part in its management, after all, the very first responsibility given to humanity was to serve, care for, and tend to it (Genesis 2:15).
There is something poignant about the fact that Creation’s liberation is tied to our own. Of course, it makes sense because once Jesus returns, the new Earth will be created, but it does feel like it highlights the beauty of the beginning of time when it was just God and His people in the garden.
It seems all God has ever wanted to do was to walk with us in the Earth He created for us (Revelations 21:4 suggests as much), and one day, when the old things have passed away, and our tears are wiped from our eyes by the loving hand of the Father, we will, but until then, we are to steward creation.
So, what is a Creation Steward? We have seen that to be a Godly steward, we must treat those God puts under us and His things with the utmost love and care. And that’s what being a Creation Steward is really, it’s recognising our God-given authority over the Earth and tending to it with the utmost love and care, championing its causes and guarding it against those who would do it harm.
Thank you so much for joining me in this post exploring what it means to be a Creation Steward! Join me next time as we answer the question: Why should we care for creation?