This was a great book to have read prior to many others and is very foundational to the development of the rest of my thoughts for a course in my doctoral training… and for life.
I truly appreciated not only the style and manner this book was written but the biblical scholarship is very solid. I don’t agree with the author’s assessment of consecration (I believe we consecrate and God sanctifies). God won’t sanctify what we don’t consecrate. Consecrating is our setting aside those things that are to be holy. Nevertheless, I have actually vocalized what this book has taught on a couple of occasions—it is that formative and conceptualizing to me.
The creation of God was declared ‘good’ and so are the laws God put into place to govern His creation. Those laws haven’t changed but we do need discover them and “have dominion over them”. This is what true science is supposed to be about. When we discover the laws of God, not only in the material world, but also in the relational world, we understand that there are right and wrongs ways of doing things in every area of life.
“Everywhere we discover limits and properties, standards and criteria: in every field of human affairs there are right and wrong ways of doing things. There is nothing in human life that does not belong to the created order” (25). Family, church, businesses, schools all have structures grounded in the realities of God’s world order (and are not arbitrary in their configuration).
“The Lord teaches the farmer his business. There is a right way and wrong way to farm-—plow, sow, thresh—depending on the grain he is growing—dill, spelt, wheat, cumin-—all must be treated differently. The LORD teaches the farmer these things. This is not a revelation through Moses, the Law and Prophets; this is a revelation that comes through creation—the soil, the seeds, and the tools of his daily experience. It is by listening to the voice of God in the work of his hands that the farmer finds the way of agricultural wisdom” (33). And the creation order is knowable. If there is a right way to grow a church, then it is knowable. There are given creational norms for all of life. And they are knowable.
“God’s revelation in creation is not verbal (38)…Mankind has in large measure lost the capacity to interpret what the heavens are saying in their wordless message.” This is a perplexing paradox to me. I now believe that creation is by design and that from understanding that design—-its patterns and laws/structure and direction—-we can know more about our God and about life on this planet.
I also believe that by these laws we learn that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. But what I think and what others think on the line of what is the right way to do something must not be weighed pragmatically. You cannot run a business like a family, nor a school like a business. Maybe it depends on the way you see the family? Or perhaps it takes more discovering the path with the light of the Scriptures.
History is the generational unfolding and opening up of the possibilities hidden in the womb of creation, both natural and human (43). The mandate to develop creation is being fulfilled in history. E. Stanley Jones stated this much too in his devotional book Spiritual Maturity. “Adam and Eve had not yet reached the level of development that God had planned for them” (46). Is he stating that he believes this unfolding of creation continues even into the new heavens and new earth order? Jones believed so.
“Bondage has to do with the enslavement to a spiritual empire. Mankind’s responsibility is never diminished when it is linked to the powers of darkness.” This tells me Satan operates according to the laws that govern the creation as well. He has to submit to set patterns for evil itself to pervert (can you say 'computer virus'?). It has to control first before the damage is done—so Satan has to control humanity before the good earth can be infected. Let's not let him get that control.
I think this will be a book I refer to over and over again. Get it, read it, live it!