Foxes and Fowls

By James Kifer

Is the animal kingdom, the foxes, fowls and others to which Jesus constantly referred a momentary vapor that briefly appears before vanishing at death? By examining Bible narratives this book attempts to provide scriptural answers to this question. Simply stated, does this element of God's Creation live in heaven?

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Harbor Press
• Release date: Apr 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386156482

James Kifer

James E. Kifer is a lawyer who lives in Oklahoma City with his wife Debbie. They have two daughters, Jennifer and Gretchen, and three grandchildren. He is a long time adult Bible school teacher who has taught the book's material and is an avid lover of animals.

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INTRODUCTION

The apostle Matthew notes Jesus’s meeting with a scribe in the early part of His ministry when He was at the height of His popularity. Obviously overwhelmed and in awe the scribe issues a verbal blank check and assures Christ that he will go with Him wherever the road leads. Rather than immediately welcoming him with open arms the Savior makes a statement that contains at least two meanings:

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.

Certainly, the most obvious teaching is that the Savior Himself, creator of the universe and the earth, was literally a beggar for a dwelling place while here. After He left the home of His parents in Nazareth we have no record of any dwelling place for the Master, be it at a palace or a hovel. Quite literally how many must have been the evenings and nights in which His ceiling of vision was the open sky, rather than the roof above a clean and comfortable bed. This realization should be sobering, humbling and the source of personal gratitude from all Christians. Yet, we may see obliquely another message in Christ’s statement to the eager scribe. If the foxes and fowls live in their holes and nests what or who is the source of this provision? The non-believer must be queried for his answer to this question, but the believer should conclude that the creatures’ homes have a divine source. All these beings are perfectly placed, and all are either given homes or the instinct and wherewithal to fashion them. The birds’ nests, the fox’s holes, the beaver’s dam, the gopher’s hole and countless others all speak to and confirm this proposition. The ability and scientific acumen which God shows in providing for the animals is momentous and astounding, but it is more than this. They are a major portion of His creation, that same Creation which Genesis records as being the subject of God’s pride and pleasure. After its completion, He could exclaim that all of … it was very good. What we create can generate much of our greatest legitimate pride, and of what we are proud we love. How could it be different with God? The same foxes and fowls for which He provides and which He created are also the subject of His love. Although it is not the incomprehensible sacrificial love which He gives humanity it is God’s love nonetheless.

Not only love but the Scriptures are also replete with almost endless stories of God’s usage of animals, directly and indirectly, by inference and by example. Surely it can be neither accidental nor coincidental that when introducing Jesus, John the Baptist exclaimed to behold the Lamb of God, and that Christ often referred to Himself as the Good Shepherd. The number of paintings, statutes, statuaries and an endless array of artistic representation of Christ as the Good Shepherd, holding and protecting His lambs, is limitless. Christians have drawn forth comfort and succor from these images, real and intangible, for two millennia.

From the beginning, it is proclaimed without hesitation or exception that mankind is God’s crowning glory of His Creation. It is into humanity’s form that God’s divine spark and even His image itself has been reposed. For all of mankind’s endless sins and failings it is humanity which Christ died to save. We need salvation, but for the foxes and fowls are they not the same creatures as were created and placed on earth for God’s pleasure and mankind’s benefit and companionship? No attempt to elevate animals to the importance of man will succeed, and just as assuredly no effort to debase humanity to the level of beasts will be victorious.

Are animals then here but for a momentary life with their deaths either passing unnoticed or wringing grief from the anguished hearts of their lifetime human companions? Even in what was once called Christendom the consensus historically has been that in another usage of James’s phrase they appear for a brief time and then vanish away into oblivion. It is a premise of this small work, though, that this is not necessarily so. The Bible, among so many other expositions, is a slow accretion of stories, references, parables and outright Divine assertions that reveal God’s love and feeling for this wondrous portion of His Creation. The fowls of the air were utilized by God as symbols and harbingers of life and death. So imprinted on the collective conscience has this been to this day the dove and the raven remain emblems of life and of death. Both Testaments are framed by and interwoven with the imagery and stories of shepherds and their sheep as earlier noted. God was even known to speak and act directly through animals. Conversely, we see parabolic stories where Christ illustrates with certain animals the moral depths and depravity to which any of us may descend.

The real, inspirational and aspirational heart of the Bible, though, is not destruction but salvation. The Christian believer’s life, thoughts and entire being have as their focus eternal salvation and an indescribably rapturously beautiful heavenly existence. A central imperative question of this work concerns what stake, if any, do animals have in this. Are they dwellers and partakers in the beauties of eternity or does their worldly status condemn them to a bleak destructive oblivion? As with everything the answer rests with God with this question, as with all others, the sources of God’s will and answers must be located and identified. After all the sermons have been preached, all the lessons taught, and the theologians and scholastics have offered their wisdom only two actual sources remain, God’s revealed Word and concomitantly the revelation of His character and desires through His word and through life. How many of us and how many of our ancestors, Biblical and historical, have drawn comfort, companionship and affection from a pet, usually but not always a dog or a cat, and have seen and shared a pet’s joy and excitement? We give them names rooted in love and converse with them by gesture or by spoken word. We pamper them, photograph them, reminisce about them, and too often feel our hearts almost torn from us when they depart this life. To use the title and refrain of an old hymn, Does Jesus care? While this brief introduction does not attempt to supply a specific answer to the question of the ultimate fate of the foxes and fowls it will assay a brief foray into an attempted understanding of God’s character and personality. Delving into the Divine personality is a risky undertaking, yet the Scriptures shed enough light that it can also be a remarkably rewarding effort. Genesis is explicit that upon the completion of Creation, God rested, effectively stepped back, looked and pronounced everything to be good. We are compelled to realize that the good of God’s handiwork correlates to complete or perfect and doubtless the foxes and fowls of that Creation were likewise perfect. This, though, is not our standard of perfection, but God’s. That perfection reflects a stupendously astonishing and diverse array, from great whales in the world’s oceans to one-celled creatures that become reality to humans only by aid of a microscope. The world’s woods and fecund forests offer everything from busy, burrowing badgers and armored porcupines to chattering squirrels, fastidious raccoons and fleet, graceful deer. Our thoughts and conceptions reel at the variety, beauty and spectacle with which God has populated the earth. For example, the infinite variety of His fowls is dazzling. Our eyes (but not His) often fail to notice the multitudes of the humble sparrow but are enamored by the polychromatic rainbow that is in every peacock. God has a sense of humor too, or else He would not have fashioned the comical quacking duck or the gloriously disproportioned toucan. The number, variety, and splendorous types of birds alone is stunning.

When the eye is turned to the foxes, the beasts of the field, it sees a display even more bewildering. From its heighth the absurdly tall giraffe strangely but kindly looks down upon us. In the cat kingdom alone, we can be mesmerized by the beauty and other worldly grace of such as the panther, the leopard and the tiger. The lion has made such an historical impression that he is often referenced as the King of Beasts. Perhaps in the gentle, genial and playful domestic cat has God shown His greatest variety in His Creator’s touch. The number and diversity of its breeds is perhaps surpassed only by the dogs. The long-haired

Persian competes with the short-haired Siamese for the affections of cat lovers. The richness of the deep blue of the British Shorthair is matched by the kaleidoscope of colors found in the Calico, the Abyssinian, the Siamese, the Russian Blue and countless others.

Doubtless no pet is more beloved worldwide than Man’s Best Friend the dog. From tiny Terriers and Chihuahuas to impressive Great Danes and lumbering, loping Saint Bernards the dog has been a beloved companion of millions, if not billions, throughout history. The excitable but wildly affectionate Cocker Spaniel, the graceful and idyllic Golden Retriever, the droopy Basset Hound, the talented and noble German Shepherd and an infinite array of other breeds and mixtures have successfully staked lifetime claims to the loyalties and hearts of the mistresses and masters.

The world would be a poorer and a drabber place without all these and countless other animals that enrich human life in many ways yet to be mentioned. The reader, though, even the skeptic, may justifiably query What does any of this really have to do with God? Are not all these beings here but for the briefest of periods and then vanish into the mists of darkness and decay for all time’s sake? These are honest questions for which a sincere and honest analysis is required.

God’s great Week of Creation can only be grasped by us in a limited, though awe inspiring, way. We cannot even feebly attempt to supply the answers and the whys to many questions. Without engaging in pantheism or any form of nature worship we can confidently state that God is within all His Creation. All good things come from God, as the apostle John has told us, so when we see the innocent, the good and the beautiful in animals we are seeing the

reflection of God Himself. Not only us but also the entirety of His world reflects the personality of God. The believer has long accepted that our Deity has a character, that of perfection. He also possesses a personality which is manifested in countless indeterminate ways yet today. At the moment, He saw that His creation was good He was viewing a part of Himself. The good and life-enhancing happiness which all these creatures give mankind reveal so many facets of the Divine personality. So many animals show an ennobling spirit of self-sacrifice for their offspring and often even for humans. God and sacrifice are so inextricably bound to one another that the two words can be essentially synonymous. Although we seldom think in such terms perhaps such traits as mirth and playfulness let the world glimpse a lighter side of God. Undoubtedly, though, the most singular trait possessed by animals that is so akin to that of God’s is the quality of innocence. Unlike humanity the foxes and fowls have no concept and no knowledge of good and evil. Any animal which we may view today retains that same perfect quality of innocence which its ancestors possessed in Eden before the Fall. Once again is this entire aspect of God’s Creation marked for eternal oblivion? The Old Testament discusses them at every turn, and they figure prominently in numberless stories. It is in the New Testament, though, where by the words, the touch and the Spirit of Christ our creatures become more personalized. Through a reading, review and analysis of the stories which follow perhaps we may harvest a clearer understanding of His relationship with the foxes and fowls. Maybe even we can gain a clarifying and more succinct understanding of His plans for His Creation by viewing His feelings, both past and present. In any event these narratives and parables