What the Bible says about the created world - an overview

Restoring and preserving creation

Genesis 1:31: Everything created was good.

Genesis 1:26, 28: Humans are stewards over the natural world, for God.

Genesis 3:17-19: The relationship between humans and nature changed because of the Fall.

2 Chronicles 36:21: Israel was punished for not taking care of the land, as commanded in Exodus 23:10-11, Leviticus 25:1-5. (Habakkuk predicted that punishment in 2:8)

Job 40-42: God is in charge of the natural world, and He knows it intimately.

Psalm 19:1-4 (Also, Romans 1:20): The natural world is one of the ways God is revealed to us. We try to make the Bible, another way God speaks, available in the language of the heart, because it speaks more clearly. We should also protect nature, so it will speak more clearly. It’s harder to see God in a polluted world.

Psalm 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s, not ours. We are merely stewards of God’s creation.

Psalm 104:10-17: God sustains the natural world.

Psalm 104:24-25: God created an abundant diversity of living things.

Romans 8:19-22: The creation is eager to be restored.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21: We are to help Christ with His ministry of reconciliation.

Colossians 1:15-20: Christ sustains the natural world. He also has a ministry of reconciling the natural world to Himself. We should help Him sustain the natural world.

Hebrews 11:3: We probably can’t prove that God created the universe, but we should believe it.

Revelation 21:1-5: God will make all things new.

A quick summary. For more on what the Bible says about environmental stewardship, see here.