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Your Congregation | Clergy & Lay Leaders | Sermons| Biblical Voices
Biblical Voices on Creation
Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament")
Voices
New Testament Voices
(All verses are from the New Revised Standard Version.)
Hebrew Bible Voices
·
Genesis 1:3-31 “God
saw everything that [God] had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (verse
31)
·
Genesis 2:7 and 15 “…then
the Lord God formed [the human, adam] out of the dust of the ground [adamah].
…The Lord took the [human] and put [the human] in the garden of Eden to
till it and keep it.”
·
Genesis 9:8-11 “Then
God said to Noah. . ., ‘As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you
and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with
you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with
you, as many as came out of the ark.’”
·
Exodus 23:10-11 “For
six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh
year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people
may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. …”
·
Leviticus 19:9-20 “When
you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the
edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest … you shall
leave them for the poor and the alien….” (verses 9 & 10)
·
Leviticus 25:2-7 “…the
land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord.
Six years you shall sow your field . . . but in the seventh year
there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land….” (verses 2-4)
·
Leviticus 26:3-4, 14-15, 33-35
“If you follow my statutes and keep my commandments and observe
them faithfully, I will give you your rains in their season, and the land
shall yield its produce ….” (verses 3-4)
·
Deuteronomy 20:19-20 “If
you besiege a town . . . you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax
against them….” (cf. 22:6-7)
·
Deuteronomy 25:4 “You
shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”
·
Job 12:7-10 “But
ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they
will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the
fish of the sea will declare to you. Who
among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In [the Lord’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the
breath of every human being.”
·
Job 38-39 “The
Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind . . . ‘Where were you when I laid
the foundation of the earth? Tell
me, if you have understanding. Who
determined its measurements … Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when
the morning stars sang together …? ’” (chapter 38, verses 1 & 4-7)
·
Psalm 19:1-6 “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and
the firmament proclaims [God’s] handiwork.” (verse 1)
·
Psalm 24:1-2 “The
earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live
in it; ...” (verse 1)
·
Psalm 74:16-17 “Yours
is the day, yours also the night; you established the luminaries and the
sun. You have fixed all the
bounds of the earth; you made the summer and winter.”
·
Psalm 96:11-13 “Let
the heavens rejoice and the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that
fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the
Lord….”
·
Psalm 104 “O
Lord, how manifold are your works! In
wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. …These
all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to
them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good
things.” (verses 24-28)
·
Psalm 148 “Praise
[the Lord], sun and moon; praise [the Lord], you highest heavens, and you
waters above the heavens! …
Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and
hail, snow and frost … Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all
cedars! Wild animals and all
cattle, creeping things and flying birds! …” (verses 3-4, 7-10)
·
Song of Songs 2:10-13 “Arise,
my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is
over and gone. The flowers
appear on the earth; the time of singing has come and the voice of the
turtledove is heard in our land….” (verses 10-12)
·
Isaiah 5:8 “Ah,
you who join house to house, who add field to field until there is room for
no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!”
·
Isaiah 11:6-9 “The
wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the
calf and the lion and the fatling together … The cow and the bear shall
graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw
like the ox. …They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for
the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the
sea.”
·
Isaiah 24:4-5 “The
earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens
languish together with the earth. The
earth lies polluted under its inhabitants … .”
·
Jeremiah 23: 23-24 “Am
I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off? …Do I not fill
heaven and earth?”
·
Ezekiel 34:18 “Is
it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down
with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with
your feet?”
·
Joel 2:21 “Do
not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!
Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the
wilderness are green…”
·
Amos 5:8 “The
one who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns deep darkness into the
morning, and darkens the day into night, who calls for the waters of the
sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the Lord is [your]
name...”
·
Wisdom of Solomon 11:24-12:1 (from the Apocrypha)
“For you [God] love all things that exist, and detest none of the
things that you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had
hated it. How would anything
have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been
preserved? You spare all
things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living. For your immortal spirit is in all things.”
·
Sirach 42:15-25 & 43 (from the Apocrypha)
The works of God in creation.
“Look at the rainbow, and praise [God] who made it; it is
exceedingly beautiful in its brightness.
It encircles the sky with its glorious arc; the hands of the Most
High have stretched it out.” (chapter 43, verses 11-12)
New Testament Voices
·
Matthew 6:26 “Look
at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.”
·
Luke 12:6 “Are
not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
And not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.”
· John 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being…And the Word became flesh and lived among us …” (verses 1-3, 14)
·
John 3:16-17 “For
God so loved the world...” (“world” in Greek translates as
“cosmos”).
·
Matthew 12:33-37, 13:24-30, 18:10-14; Mark 4:26-29, 30-32;
Luke 15:1-7; John 15:1-7 Examples
of parables and analogies that call upon the natural world.
·
Acts 17:27-28 “…indeed
[God] is not far from us. For
‘In [God] we live and move and have our being’….”
· Romans 8:19-23 “…the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now …” (verses 21-22)
·
Ephesians 1:7-10 “…
[God] set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up
all things to him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
(verses 9-10)
· Colossians 1:15-20 “[Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together … and through him God was pleased to reconcile to [God-self] all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (verses 17, 20)
· Revelation 4:6b-11 “And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne . . . they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, ‘You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.’” (verses 9-11)
· Revelation 21:1-5 Heaven and Earth made one.