“If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.” Deuteronomy 22.6, 7

God’s Covenant, which includes His Law, is so designed as to ensure that His blessings reach to “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12.1-3). This includes the families not yet born. God loves human beings and is concerned for their welfare, and for the welfare of all His creation. The people whom God has redeemed for Himself, and brought within His Covenant and Kingdom, will practice God’s plans and carry out His will for blessing the world. Thus, they will learn and keep the requirements of an economics of justice in such a way as to demonstrate love for the generations to come, that those who come after us also might be able to enjoy the blessings of God and thus glorify Him.

As the people of God’s Covenant, we do this in part by properly instructing children in the Word and works of God (Deut. 6; Ps. 78.1-8; etc.). We want our children and their children to grow up knowing and loving God and learning from Him the principles of neighbor-love that will benefit all people.

But we also fulfill our calling within God’s Covenant by honoring the creation around us in ways that conserve its fruitfulness for the generations to come.

Environmental science has learned much about eco-systems and how they may be conserved. It is consonant with an economics of justice, as our text suggests, to apply the best principles of conservation to the resources of the environment in ways that keep the land and its creatures healthy and productive unto the next generation. We may not agree with every environmental policy or group but we must try to learn from them what we can and to sift their programs through the grid of God’s Law in order to learn the best ways of conserving the creation for the future.

And we must learn to check our consuming passions. We must not exploit the creation out of short-sighted, self-serving thinking; rather, we must commit to policies and practices that both allow the creation to fulfill its purpose as our servants (Ps. 119.89-91) and to continue flourishing for the benefit of generations to come.

T. M. Moore

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