Today’s thought “Allowed to have dominion over the universe” (January 02)

The first Daily Bible Readings of the year tells us about the beginning of everything and how man received the earth.

In Genesis 1 we read on the first day of the year how the Unseen Eternal Spirit Being out of nowhere, time, space, and all the living whirl forth, as Elohim or God spoke the universe into existence. We learn that with the utterance of the Voice or by the Word (Verbum-Logos-Ereyga), creation took form, from the void, chaos yielded to order, light eclipsed darkness, and emptiness filled with life.

Coastal sea waves at Paracas National Reserve, Ica, Peru

In Genesis 1 we read that the earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Ruach Elohim or Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. We read that every time when the Elohim spoke and commanded there was to come something, it came into being. As such there came to be light to separate the darkness (Genesis 1:3-5; 14-19), a dome or space between the waters, creating the sky with its clouds and waters of the heavens (Genesis 1:6-8), making waters beneath the sky flow together into one place forming seas, so dry ground could appear and land was created (Genesis 1:9-10). After this was done God made all sorts of domestic and wild – large and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:24-25).

In that universe the Elohim Hashem Jehovah came to create in His own image a sort of beings that were allowed to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that crept or scurried along the ground. (Genesis 1:26-29; 2:7-9)

Plant – Plantae

Already in the first Book of Moses we can see how God placed man on another level than plants and animals. He gave them a territory and other living beings (plants and animals) to name, influence and/or control. All the plants have to be seen as part of God’s creation and therefore should be respected as such. (Genesis 1:9-13; 2:5; 2:19-20)

In yesterdays reading we also find one of the first tasks God gave mankind. Today we also find another assignment or commandment added. Other tasks and commandments would later also been given and recorded in the Book of books, the bible.

“ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (Ge 1:26 ASV)

“28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that {1 } moveth upon the earth. {1) Or creepeth }
29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: 30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is {1 } life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. {1) Heb a living soul } (Ge 1:28-30 ASV)

“15 And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16  And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Ge 2:15-17 ASV)

When having received all that goodness from the earth, given by his Divine Maker and Eternal Source of everything, one would think man would be pleased with it and treat it very well. Though already soon in the beginning of times man went against his Creator and showed disobedience.

From the moment he let himself be guided by his own selfish thoughts, or wants, he became a bird for the cat. Though God had given lots of trees and herbs He warned man not to eat from one tree, because that would not be good for him.

“29  And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: 30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is {1 } life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. {1) Heb a living soul } (Ge 1:29-30 ASV)

“ And out of the ground made Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Ge 2:9 ASV)

“15 And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16  And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Ge 2:15-17 ASV)

“15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” (Ge 1:15-16 ASV)

“ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Ge 2:17 ASV)

Following her own desires the first woman managed to pull her husband into her adventure for trying to become like God. The third chapter of Genesis tells us about the cause of all our problems. Man not listening to God but willing to follow his own misleading thoughts. (Genesis 3:1-6)

Photo from article by Grace and Peace: “The Serpent Deceived Me…”

There has been “Nachash” or temptation (in lots of English Bibles translated with “serpent”, in others with “snake”) which has taken man away from God. What happened then, we often call the “Fall“, because man fell from his wonderfully intangible position and became a pathetic being, full of tricks and self-delusion, now having to feel pain, and having to suffer, also having to face death. (Genesis 3:14, 16-19)

Today it is still that deception that causes a lot of problems and got us in such a mess that conferences concerning our attitude to nature are still not reaching the ears and hearts of the people.

The past two decades climate change conferences have grown exponentially in size and lots of scientists (a.o. climatologists) have sounded the alarmbell, though not many leaders seem to want to carefully listen and do something against our destruction of the world.
From 2-13 December 2019 it was already the 25th UN Climate Change Conference that took place. The months before that, it were mainly the youngsters and pensioners who regularly came onto the streets to raise their voice.

Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance, signed in 2016, lots of the debaters and negotiators came to work more against each other than with each other. Trump found it even necessary to laugh it away and to break his contract with the rest of the world. For him and many others, those youngster would better go to attend school.

Global mean surface temperature change since 1880 until 2019. Source: NASA GISS

Whilst global temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate, causing drought and forest fires, we also cannot ignore the amount of increased heavy and many damaging storms and the impact on human health and economy. Even when put with their nose in the “shit” many politicians do not want to see it, or prefer to give the many factories a free way, for making as much money as they can, no matter the impact on climate.

It had to be teenage climate activists to call on adults to

“listen to science before it’s too late.”

and to bring them to their senses.

God had provided a paradise for mankind. Man was placed in a marvelous environment where everything was in balance. But because man his own will to go against God, abandoning His Laws and regualtions, everything became unbalanced. Man wanted to be like God and God gave him an opportunity to show that he could arrange the world better than God. But man proved to be useless without God.

That is one of the greatest lessons from the bible and from history that we should remember.

We should know it is still not too late! We still can work at a better place than we got after all those years. Though we must remember, like it is written in the Bible, we still shall have to carry the faults from the previous 4 generations with us.

“ thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them; for I Jehovah thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me,” (Ex 20:5 ASV)

For our children, let us not postpone anything further, to strive for a better climate. Those who believe in God should also try to get others to live according to God’s Laws, respecting the creation and as such not wasting natural goods and taking care of the ecological footprint by using those things that God provides in the own surroundings.

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Preceding

Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #1 Creator and His Prophets

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #1 Beginning of everything

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #2 Beginning of mankind

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #3 With his partner

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #5 Temptation, assault and curse

The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #6 Curse and solution

Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures

the Bible – God’s guide for life #1 Introduction

the Bible – God’s guide for life #2 Needs in life

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Additional reading

1. “Before” and “after” the Big Bang
2. Blackness, nothingness, something, void
3. Something from nothing
4. From waste and void coming into being by God’s Word
5. From nothingness, except an eternal Being, the Ruach brought into being
6. Word-Verbum-Logos-Ereyga
7. The very very beginning 2 The Word and words
8. God, the Father, the Sole Creator of Heaven and Earth
9. God’s Word Framing universe
10. How did the original readers understand Gen 1:1?
11. Bereshith 1-2 The Creation of the World – The Seven Days
12. Between Alpha and Omega – The plan of creation
13. Creation Creator and Creation
14. The very very beginning 1 Creating Gods
15. How Many Persons Created the Heavens and the Earth?
16. Scripture about Creation and Creator Deity
17. Necessity of a revelation of creation 2 Organisation of a system of things
18. Different principle about the origin and beginning of everything
19. Stories of the beginnings, and one Main book composed of four major sections
20. Creator and Blogger God 1 Emptiness and mouvement
21. Means of creations
22. Genesis Among the Creation Myths
23. Other stories about the beginning of times
24. If thousands of years and millions of testimonies about the workings of God are mere foolishness
25. Between gods and animals: becoming human in the Gilgamesh epic
26. About The story of Creation 1 Existing cosmologies
27. About The story of Creation 2 Genesis narrative
28. About The story of Creation 3 Nothingness, chaos, order and divine intelligence
29. About The story of Creation 4 State of things at the time when God first spoke
30. A Book to trust #3 Creation and Creator
31. A Book to trust #5 Words directed to create order
32. A Book to trust #26 Roadmap for life out of darkness
33. An anarchistic reading of the Bible (2)—Creation and what follows
34. Coming to the creation of human beings in the image of God
35. Possible problems with two Accounts of the beginning of human race
36. No other god besides Jehovah who gives all explanation
37. Nature of the Bore according the first books
38. Necessity of a revelation of creation 4 Getting understanding by Word of God 2
39. From dust and breath into living beings
40. Created in the image of the Elohim to use their likeness properly
41. The image, living beings and being accountable to God
42. The figure of Eve
43. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 3
44. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4
45. Bereshith 3 Fall of man
46. Gone astray, away from God
47. First mention of a solution against death 1 To divine, serpent, opposition, satan and adversary
48. First mention of a solution against death 2 Harm or no harm and naked truth
49. First mention of a solution against death 3 Tempter Satan and man’s problems
50. First mention of a solution against death 4 A seed for mankind
51. Scattered, broken, thwarted reflection of God
52. Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #1
53. Importance of Tikkun olam
54. Expectations for kashrut to meet individual and contemporary norms
55. Postponing once more
56. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1
57. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2
58. Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3
59. Time to consider how to care for our common home
60. 2015 Health and Welfare
61. 2015 Ecology
62. Ecological economics in the stomach #1 Alarmbell
63. Going for sustainable development
64. High time to to put the environment at the heart of people’s lives
65. The European Union – the environmental challenges and your voice
66. June – July 2019
67. EU well placed to protect and enhance citizens’ living standards while pursuing an ambitious transition to an environmentally sustainable economy
68. Stepping forward with public commitments for Making different sectors carbon neutral by 2050

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Photo from: DayBreaks for 12/9/19 – When I Survey the Heavens

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