25th July 2025
Following in Adam’s footsteps
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:28 (NIV)
Looking after the earth, that is our God-given collective job. God started Adam on this stewardship by giving him the simple task of naming the animals.
I thought that sounded a fun way to begin, and if we take a look at that specific job, it has continued down the centuries. My search tells that people such as Aristotle started to classify animals, and then Carl Linnaeus in 1758 published the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, a hierarchical classification system for animals and plants. This system, created by him, had two later editions and has been used ever since. It’s called the binomial system, where each species of plant and animal is given a genus name followed by a specific name (species), with both names being in Latin.
I confess I rarely manage to remember the proper names of the trees and plants in my garden, but this way of naming has put order on the earth’s species. Each year more new plants and animals are discovered and are given names.
Just up the road from where I live is Wakehurst Place housing the Millennium Seed Bank. For more than 25 years they have been collecting seeds from plants in over a hundred countries and territories across the world. In sub-zero, flood, bomb, and radiation-proof underground vaults, they store a collection of over 2.4 billion seeds, banking them to conserve them for the future, each one carefully classified and named. It’s the largest, most diverse, wild plant species genetic resource in the world. The work may not be quite as much fun as Adam had, but they are still continuing in the stewardship of the creation, endeavouring to push back the damage we have done to our precious and beautiful world by our selfish and careless destruction.
One day God will give us a new world, one that all of us will care for together. In the meantime we can be thankful for those who work to preserve our environment.
Prayer
Our Father, you gave us a beautiful world to look after, and we have been carelessly trashing it. We are thankful for those who are prepared to push back against our selfishness, and we are thankful that one day you will graciously give us a new world. Amen.
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Study by: Hilary Buck About the author: |
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion in Lewes
The House of Friendship
208 High Street
Lewes
BN7 2NS
Meeting time:
Sunday 11:00 am
Local congregational contact:
Hilary Buck
Email: lewes@gracecom.church
Like us on www.facebook.com/Grace Communion Lewes
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church