An Excerpt from "The Cultural Commission"

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
—Genesis 1:28—

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Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcy contend that when God gives this directive [Gen. 1:28] to Adam and Eve at this point on the sixth day of creation, He essentially passes the baton of work in the world to the human agents He has created. It is not His intention to abandon His creation or the people who are in it, for He still will be involved with them in a variety of ways. A great deal of social and cultural work now must be done to maintain the created order, but now, people will accomplish this work. The specific tasks involved relate directly to the God-given responsibilities of having dominion over creation and filling and subduing the earth.

While sin has entered the world since God gave the command we find in Genesis 1:28, the tasks of human beings remain essentially the same. Couples still bear children and rear them in the context of family. People still plant and tend crops and raise animals for food and to perform needed services. They form and maintain neighborhoods, communities, cities, and nations. They also engage in creative endeavors by writing and performing music, producing works of literature, making films, and creating works of visual art.¹

With God’s help, Christians can show the world what Christ would do were He physically present and involved in variety of endeavors.

In other words, the fall did not wipe out God’s cultural directive. Furthermore, Christians, more than any other group of people, can demonstrate that sin doesn’t have to overshadow it.² In the context of life as it continues to unfold, believers have countless special opportunities to show the world what Christ would do were He physically present and involved in a wide variety of endeavors.

Notes:

¹Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1999), 295.

²Ibid.

An Excerpt from “The Cultural Commission”