March 7, 2023

II Peter 3: 10-13 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed . . . what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives . . . That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. (NIV)

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.*

As a Christian and a political conservative, I think I’m supposed to scoff at the very idea of global warming.  As a non-scientist, I make no claim to expertise in the matter so I tend to refrain from commenting. But . . . doesn’t this passage seem to describe some very extreme global warming?

After God destroyed all life on earth with the use of water (all life except those in the ark, that is), he placed a rainbow in the sky to remind us that he is never going to do that again. Instead, next time around, he plans to use fire. I don’t think he has specified whether it will be done gradually, as in global warming, or instantaneously, as in nuclear warfare, but does it matter? Peter doesn’t waste time on speculation and neither should we. “What kind of people should we be?” is the critical question. We should live holy and godly lives, he says.

It is important to know what the future holds for our planet – else God would not have included the information in his word. But how much of scripture is devoted to the subject? Not as much as is dedicated to instructing us in how to live a Christian life. Not as much as there are words of hope about this life and eternal life. Not as much as there is about sharing the good news with the lost.

Concern about our physical environment is not silly or unscriptural, but as someone has stated: “It’s not that such issues are unimportant. It is rather, that they often take on importance only in the absence of more basic, more life and death matters.”* Concern about our spiritual environment should be the driving force in every aspect of life on earth. The right spiritual balance leads to the right physical action. To rephrase the recycling motto:  “Think globally. Act spiritually.”

If the priorities of our heart are wrong, nothing we do is really holy to God.*