Stewardship: God's Way of Recreating the World

By Steven F Kindle

There is little disagreement that our world is as close to self-destruction as it has ever been, humanity included. It is unnecessary to list the wars, political conflicts, diseases, ecological disasters, and the like; we are all too familiar with a daily rehearsal of our plight. What there is little or no agreement on is the way out. How will we, as the human race, find our way out of our mutually shared predicament and into a world of wholeness and abundance that the Hebrews named shalom? Is there any wisdom available to us that can lead the way? The answer proposed here is to reconnect with the biblical notion of stewardship as a way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Apr 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781631991752

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Stewardship

God’s Way of Recreating the World

by

Steve Kindle

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, FL

2015

Copyright © 2015, Steven F. Kindle

Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are taken are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Kindle Edition

1-63199-`74-4

978-1-63199-174-5

Print Edition

ISBN10: 1-63199-173-6

ISBN13: 978-1-63199-173-8

Energion Publications

P. O. Box 841

Gonzalez, FL 32560

energion.com

[e-mail]

To First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

of Redding, California

Partners with God in recreating the world

With thanks and appreciation to Larry Haight, Director of Library Services, and Eric Wheeler, Reader and Digital Services Librarian for Simpson University, and Keegan Osinski, Public Services Assistant, Vanderbilt Divinity Library, for their assistance in providing many of the resources for this book.

Introduction

There is little disagreement that our world is as close to self-destruction as it has ever been, humanity included. It is unnecessary to list the wars, political conflicts, diseases, ecological disasters, and the like; we are all too familiar with a daily rehearsal of our plight. What there is little or no agreement on is the way out. How will we, as the human race, (homo sapiens, or the wise humans) find our way out of our mutually shared predicament and into a world of wholeness and abundance that the Hebrews named shalom? Is there any wisdom available to us that can lead the way?

Jews and Christians have at their disposal a wisdom that is comprehensive enough to meet the challenges of our time. We understand this wisdom to be a gift from God as we have received it through the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The only problem is that we have abandoned it long ago. At least we in the West have, who traded in our bountiful inheritance for a mess of meager pottage known as the consumerist society,¹ and the promotion of the individual over the greater good for all.

This book is a challenge and an appeal. Its challenge is to reconnect with the ancient wisdom that first conceived of a world after God’s own heart. Its appeal is to take up the mission we pray so often, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God’s will for God’s creation is not hidden or kept solely for the initiate. It is not beyond the ability of the lowliest disciple or too inconsequential for the highest. To rediscover and then implement our sapiential heritage is not only vital, it is our highest calling as humans, and the way out of our current and continuing crisis.

Joseph Blenkinsopp, in his Creation, Un-creation, Re-creation: A discursive commentary on Genesis 1-11, outlines the progression of God’s activity from the perspective of primordial time to the call of Abraham.² With the desire of Adam and Eve to be like God, humanity was set on a course of self-destruction that ended with God being so sorry (for it repenteth me that I had made them. KJV) that God wiped out all but the necessary ingredients with which to start over, or re-create. From that first moment Noah emerged from the ark, God has been working to return creation, and certainly humanity, to God’s original purpose.

Primordial time has become our time: humanity is un-creating our world even as God is hard at work re-creating it. Until humans restore God’s original intention for partnership in maintaining the Earth, we will continue on our road to destruction.

The farther we get away from Modernism’s tendency to break down everything into its constituent parts, keeping them separate, and move toward seeing the entire universe as one integrated whole, the closer we get