Teaching Christian stewardship has become a customary fall program in many churches to remind us that faith without works is dead. A common three-pronged approach to stewardship is time, talents, and treasures.

But stewardship is not limited to those three areas. For example, God commanded us to "rule over the earth," to take care of it. Yet God's command for environmental consciousness and care has gone unheeded for generations.

How can Christians promote environmental stewardship? To answer that, we must look to the past and the present to promote a Christian environmental ethic in the future.

A spoiled world

The world God created in six days was perfect in every way. No acid rain, global warming, or ozone depletion. God, the author of all creation, provided organisms with a perfect environment.

But the effect of the fall into sin includes living in a world that "has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22).

That perfect surrounding was spoiled by the effects of sin, just as we were corrupted. The godly perfection of land, air, water, and living things--and the interactions between them--had been squandered away. Even though God intervened in our eternal fate with the gift of Jesus, there was no promise of another "heaven on earth." Our environment has been altered from its created status.

A responsibility from God

The fact remains--the earth is still a gift of the Lord. How are we to treat it? Some ancient civilizations worshiped the land, the sea, and the sun. Others thought they were "one spirit" with the land and the creatures on and in it. Pagan worship, directed at specific aspects of God's creation, defied the words of God "Do not have other gods." Secular earth-respect has been revitalized with the popularization of the writings of Aldo Leopold. "The earth," Leopold writes, "is worthy of respect in and of itself."

An imperfect earth has been entrusted to imperfect human beings. How can Christians respond to this challenge of stewardship? With proper motivation, Christians can model themselves as the Lord's caretakers of his creation. We know our limitations. We are not evolving into more favorable beings, and the earth is not progressing into a heavenly state. But Christians can do many things.

The earth, with all its stains and scars, is still a magnificent work of art! We need to subscribe to the "Creation Appreciation" course every day. Our sense of earth-worth goes beyond respect for the physical factors of the environment. Our loyalty should be to our marvelous Creator, who not only knew us before we were born, but provided a marvelous setting for us to do his work.