God's Good Earth

The Bible opens with the story of God's work of creation. At the end of the first account of creation in Genesis the point is made emphatically: "...and behold, it was very good." Genesis 2 gives a second account of creation—this time the emphasis is on the human vocation. Creation was good, but it was incomplete. Adam was to work with God as a gardener, tending God’s good earth, cultivating it, caring for it, protecting it, and expanding it. The original human vocation was to work with God in the cultivation and care of God’s good earth. God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth in order to deputize them for the care and cultivation of the earth. But then sin happened, with catastrophic effects upon human identity and vocation. Not only did human beings begin to suffer, creation itself began to suffer. God's children commissioned with the care of God's good earth had turned bad.