Image: Creative Commons under Unsplash

Introduction

As recently as the 2018 Gallup poll, climate change ranked near the bottom of Americans’ environmental concerns. But that has changed. A Google search on the question “What are the largest problems facing the 21st century?” on May 15, 2023, generated a substantial number of links, including to various lists, with environmental issues, including climate change, near the top. Climate change has become a hot-button issue. It moved out of the realm of meteorology and into politics, and then religion (Gushee, 2006), long ago. As a result, opinion is now fractured largely into two camps: those who don’t think a slightly warmer Earth is an existential threat and those who believe we’re headed into a climate apocalypse in the next decade if we don’t take radical steps to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. The science is not settled on this issue—neither by the data nor by the definition of the word science itself. But one thing has been settled since the dawn of creation: What God thinks about the environment and what is man’s responsibility as Earth’s caretaker.

This is an important issue for the church, and this paper will examine the ethics of Christian Earth stewardship beginning from the creation narrative in Genesis when man was placed in a garden and given the mandate to rule over and subdue the Earth (Gen. 1:28). We will utilize several of the Ten Commandments as normative, broadly and narrowly, negatively and positively, including the first commandment’s prohibition to worship false gods such as “Mother Nature” or Gaia, the fourth commandment’s implied warning against secular environmentalism and its wrongheaded approach to land use, the fifth commandment’s call for servant leadership to the earth, the sixth commandment’s logical extension to protect and preserve the environment for the sake of God’s creation, most importantly, for the health and well-being of the people who live on the Earth, and the eighth commandment’s concept of stewardship. This will necessarily include a discussion of the poor and the impact of radical environmental policies in the Developing World. Lastly, we will develop a Christian triperspectival ethic utilizing existential, deontological, and teleological concepts: Christians should be the voice of reason when it comes to environmental issues. It is our duty to take care of God’s creation and in so doing, it will benefit everyone while giving glory to God.

The Church Should Be Skeptical of the Claims Made by Climate Alarmists

On any given day, my Twitter feed is filled with links to articles, graphs, and videos about climate change. The phrase alone is instructional. It wasn’t too long ago that the term used was global warming and before that, fears were of an impending ice age (Rasool and Schneider, 1971) along with mass starvation and overpopulation on a global scale (Mann, 2018). None of these disasters has ever transpired, yet the so-called experts behind these predictions still get face time in the media. Here in the U.S., the historical data for weather-related events such as hurricane frequency and intensity, tornado frequency, and the incidences of wildfires in western states are at multi-decadal lows despite a steady increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (Spencer, 2018; CO2.earth, n.d.) since the Industrial Revolution. And while the Earth’s temperature has increased during the last century, the increase has been half of what the climate

models simulated. Meanwhile, the Earth has responded with an extraordinary greening as the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide drives photosynthesis resulting in record grain production worldwide (Idso, 2013). But you’d hardly know any of these facts unless you intentionally went looking for them.

No one should deny climate change per se. Climate change is a defining characteristic of planet Earth. Historical accounts and scientific measurements such as tree rings and ice core data show that the Earth has experienced epochs that were both colder and warmer over the past 2,000 years. The Roman Warm Period (1 AD–500 AD) and the Medieval Warm Period (950 AD–1250 AD) were both warmer than the Current Warm Period (Idso, 2018; Magaritelli et al., 2020). The Little Ice Age (1300 AD–1850 AD) was considerably colder. Along with a warmer Earth come rising sea levels. Yet the rate of sea-level rise has essentially remained constant for the last 140 years (Lindsey, 2022). And in South Florida, where I live, there is evidence, in the form of marine shells found far inland from the ocean, of an extraordinary millennial variability in the eastern coastline of the of the United States (Rummo, 2019).

The postmodern deconstruction of language has been successfully applied to climate change through the use of drama-laden vocabulary to characterize meteorological phenomena. Winter storms are now named similarly to hurricanes, and the large ones are no longer called blizzards but bomb cyclones. Cold air masses during the winter months in the northern tier of the U.S. are now the result of the Polar vortex. And climate change skeptics like me have been branded as climate change deniers. Al Gore, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, a 2006 documentary that predicted numerous global climate catastrophes by 2016, none of which have materialized (Behr, 2022), recently went on an unhinged rant at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, warning about “atmospheric rivers,” “rain bombs,” “boiling oceans” and increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide trapping as much heat in the Earth’s troposphere as “600,000 Hiroshima class bombs every day” (Hays, 2023). And ramping up the hysteria is 24-7 on-location, live reporting of every weather-related disaster by meteorologists and storm chasers, often risking their lives so they can bring horrific images of weather fury and devastation into our living rooms in full color on our large-screen flat-panel displays, a phenomenon unknown in previous generations.

Pundits like Al Gore, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye, “the Science Guy,” then further exaggerate what is reported. Next, public school teachers repeat all of the misinformation to their students, relying on textbooks written by poorly informed authors, many with only a superficial knowledge of science. Alarmist theories are presented as fact. Is it any wonder our young people grow up believing humans are destroying the Earth? (Spencer, 2018)

Roger Scruton sums up this strategy of apocalyptic fear-mongering succinctly: “The curbing of human activity is the goal. We are the problem, and it is our intrusion into Eden that spelled disaster for the world” (Scruton, 2012).

“We’ve Got to Get Ourselves Back to the Garden”

“We are stardust. We are golden. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” So goes the chorus to the popular 70s song, Woodstock, written by Joni Mitchel. What is it about our longing to get back to a garden (Hughes, 2022)? Writing in Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis observed: “Our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something, in the universe

from which we now feel cutoff, … is not mere neurotic fantasy but the truest indication of our real situation” (Lewis, 1955).

Scripture is clear that it’s not just we who are longing to get back to the garden. When Paul wrote that “all creation groans” (Romans 8:22), he was referring to the curse to which all creation had been subjected as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve. Using anthropomorphic language, Paul wrote that the universe is crying out, longing to get back to the garden, to see the day when the Edenic curse will be lifted, and man will once again flourish as originally intended. All creation includes everyone, even those who are outside of the Christian faith. They too have been created in the image and likeness of God and bear the imago Dei. But their love is misplaced. Augustine wrote, “We sin when, neglectful of order, we fix our love on the creature instead of on thee, the Creator” (Augustine, 388). Timothy Keller adds, “Human beings were made in the image of God who is tripersonal; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From all eternity, those three divine persons have been loving one another in infinite degrees of joy and glory. We were created to know this joy by loving and glorifying God preeminently. Whether we acknowledge God or not, since we were created for it, we will always look for the infinite joy we were designed to find in loving communion with the Divine” (Keller, 2016).

Writing in An Old Testament Theology, Bruce Waltke explains,

Paradise: a place without pain, without suffering, a time when love and peace flourish. Paradise has been the object of hopes and dreams for every generation. … This is rooted in the essence of humanity: we are beings who do not accept the world as it is; something in our instinct, in our collective consciousness, tells us that the world at present is out of sync—there has to be a better time, a better place. People yearn for paradise … and the Garden of Eden narrative is universally compelling because it tells of a paradise within humanity’s potential. (Waltke and Yu, 2007)

We Can’t Get Back to the Garden Until the Eschaton, in the Meantime …

This “universally compelling yearning for paradise” that Waltke describes is the driving force behind a call to action by climate change activists, both religious and non-religious alike. (I distinguish “benevolent, climate change proponents” from those who are anti-social and destructive of private property, anti-capitalist communists, and politicians profiting from it—the so-called “climate hustlers.”) Despite being well-intentioned, they—even some evangelicals—are mostly misguided, given how their proposed policies and calls to action would affect the poor in the Developing World.

In 2006, The Evangelical Climate Initiative published Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action (Gushee, 2006). This document made four claims: human climate change is real, the consequences of climate change will be significant and will hit the poor the hardest, Christian moral conviction demands our response to the climate change problem, and the need to act now is urgent.

Several months later, a document entitled, A Call to Truth, Prudence and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming (Beisner et al., 2006), while commending the ECI for speaking out on an important public issue of ethical concern, challenged its Call to Action, point by point. The Call to Truth concluded that there was a substantial, natural variability in climate history which is still poorly understood, making

accurate computer modeling of catastrophic outcomes speculative and therefore unsuitable as a basis for government climate policies. The document also noted that the mandatory reduction in the use of fossil fuels demanded by net zero carbon would have a “destructive impact on the poor … far in excess of any impact, either positive or negative, of the moderate global warming that is most likely to occur.”

Its authors stated:

The harm caused by mandatory CO2 restrictions will almost certainly outweigh the benefits, especially to the poor, for whom the marginal increases in prices will be a much greater burden than for the rich. The world’s poor are much better served by enhancing their wealth through economic development than by whatever minute reductions might be achieved in future global warming by reducing CO2 emission.

The Call to Truth concluded, “that Christians must care about climate change because we love God and are called to love our neighbors and that God has given us stewardship over the earth.”

Scripture never mentions climate change per se, although it does state, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

In the creation narrative, Adam was given the mandate to subdue the Earth and to have dominion over every living thing (Genesis 1:28). Despite being expelled from the garden, this mandate remains in effect. It is, therefore our duty, out of love for God and our neighbors, to be ready to act in the interest of the good of others regardless of climatological factors that may or may not cause natural disasters.

Five of the Ten Commandments provide a framework for establishing a Christian ethic of Earth stewardship. We will examine them along with their implications and some practical suggestions for the church as the subject of the rest of this paper.

The First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Worship the Earth

In its narrow sense, the First Commandment expressly forbids the worship of any god other than the one true God. This would include worship of “Mother Nature,” or Gaia, the Earth God (Vaughn, 2014). Worshipping the Earth is misplaced worship, and the Apostle Paul was explicit when he wrote that this is exchanging the truth about God for a lie and not just worshipping the creature but also serving the creature instead of the Creator (Romans 1:25). Timothy Keller, writing about the idolatry of power in our own lives, explains:

The original temptation in the Garden of Eden was to resent the limits God had put on us. (“You shall not eat of the tree …”; Genesis 2:17) and to seek to be “as God” by taking power over our own destiny. We gave in to this temptation, and now it is part of our nature. Rather than accept our finitude and dependence on God, we desperately seek ways to assure ourselves that we still have power over our own lives. But this is an illusion. (Keller, 2009)

This “power over our own lives” extends to a desire to control the weather. While we have succeeded in making indoor living comfortable with heating and air conditioning, and we’ve been able to coax rain from the clouds by seeding them, controlling the weather is “an illusion.” Bill Gates proposed stationing barges in the ocean in the path of oncoming hurricanes.

The idea, for which Gates filed five patents in 2009 (Preuitt, 2009), was that the barges would pump deep, cold ocean water to the surface, cooling the engine that drives hurricanes. More recently, he invested $12 million in a project to reduce bovine eructation (Milman, 2023). In a similar vein, Bjørn Lomborg, whom TIME Magazine voted one of the 100 most influential people (despite having written extensively about climate change misinformation), suggested whitening the clouds to reflect heat back into space (Jowit, 2010).

I even wrote a fiction article (Rummo, 2022) suggesting a multi-national project to terraform the Sahara Desert to reduce the heat that initiates Atlantic hurricane formation. But despite this being written as CliFi (Climate Fiction), there were over 100 comments by readers, almost all of them serious. But controlling the weather is reserved for God alone (cf. Genesis 8:22, Psalms 147:8, 148:8; Job 5:10; 26:8–9; 37:1–18; Proverbs 3:19–20; Matthew 8:27), and we are not God.

In the broader and positive sense, the First Commandment implies that we educate people about the one true God—in our churches, in our Christian schools, in our casual conversations, and, most importantly, in our own homes beginning from a very early age. Our children must be taught that the Earth is not God, but it belongs to him and so do we: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1).

Writing in Reflections on the Psalms, C. S. Lewis addresses this confusion between the Creator and the creation: “What makes and what is made must be two, not one. Thus, the doctrine of Creation in one sense, empties Nature of divinity. But in another sense, the same doctrine which empties Nature of her divinity also makes her an index, a symbol, a manifestation of the Divine. It is surely just because the natural objects are no longer taken to be themselves Divine, that they can now be magnificent symbols of divinity” (Lewis, 2013).

John M. Frame concludes: “Scriptural environmentalism rejects pantheistic religions of the earth that have motivated some non-Christian activists. The earth is not God. It is not our mother or father. We should not worship it or seek mystical union with it, but we should respect it as God’s creation and seek to carry out his will for the planet” (Frame, 2008).

The Fourth Commandment and the Implications of the Sabbath

It may seem strange that the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,” would have anything to do with Earth Stewardship. It is commonly (and correctly) held that the narrow meaning of the fourth commandment is to set aside one day a week to rest from work and come together as a community of believers to worship the Lord. But along with the announcement of this commandment to Moses, the Lord inserted additional information: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” (Exodus 20:11). The Fourth Commandment therefore prescribes a day of both rest and consecration, a day when “all creation recognizes, affirms and honors God’s Lordship and behaves accordingly” (Frame, 2008).

Writing in Kingdom Prologue, Meredith G. Kline explains, “all the creation of the six days is consecrated to man as the one set over all the works of God’s hand, as the hierarchical structure of Genesis 1 shows, but man himself, in turn, is consecrated to the One who sets all things under his feet” (Kline, 1991).

Frame adds: “So man is part of the holy celebration of God’s lordship. He is one of those creatures consecrated to God on the seventh day, and, as God’s vassal king, the rest of creation is

consecrated to him. He acknowledges God’s lordship, and he gratefully accepts God’s gift of vassal kingship, taking on himself the responsibility to carry out the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28” (Frame, 2008).

This mandate given to Adam and Eve at creation extended beyond them to all men. Richard B. Gaffin comments:

As God rested from his completed work of creation, so man would enter into his rest after completing his tasks as viceregent over creation (cf. Heb 4:10). This analogy between Creator and image-bearing creature involves an important difference. The creating work of God had been completed, and his rest had begun (cf. Heb. 4:3–4). The task entrusted to Adam/man had yet to be performed; his rest was still future (cf. Heb. 4:9). (Gaffin, 1998)

But there is still more we can learn from the Fourth Commandment. The Sabbath years mandated ecological responsibility.” Frame explains:

God is concerned not only with people, animals, and plants but with the land. … Although the cultural mandate tells us to have dominion over the earth, that dominion is like God’s to be a benevolent dominion. We are not to exploit the land but to preserve it. God takes this responsibility very seriously. This does not imply, as in much secular environmentalism, that any land is to be kept pristine, untouched by human hands. God has given the earth to human beings. But we are to deal with it responsibly, which means in our time to control pollution and use the land in ways that will bless, not curse future generations. (Frame, 2008)

And finally, the application of the Sabbath is to draw attention to the poor. In the Book of Exodus, there is the command to allow the land to “lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat” (Exodus 23:11). “Church leaders, evangelicals in particular, are concerned about climate change primarily because they fear its potential impact on the world’s poor, especially in the tropics” (Spencer, Driessen, and Beisner, 2005). God has much to say regarding the plight of the poor and justice. We will highlight this further in our discussion of the Eighth Commandment.

The Fifth Commandment’s Call for Servant Leadership to the Earth

The Fifth Commandment’s mandate to honor father and mother extends broadly to include all those in authority. “The metaphoric uses of father and mother extend the reach of the fifth commandment into many spheres of society and many different authority structures. … [E]very authority structure carries an obligation similar to the obligations of children to parents. And faithfulness in each of these relations results in the promise of long life and prosperity” (Frame, 2008). There are critical linkages between the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Commandments and their implications for Earth stewardship. Long life, prosperity, and compassion for the poor clearly require an ordered hierarchical structure of society and mutual respect for those in and under authority. Unfortunately, man’s sinful nature will always thwart his best efforts at creating a worldwide utopia until the Lord returns and makes a new heaven and earth (Rev. 21). Our responsibility now entails the thoughtful use of our natural resources and a thoughtful approach to educating people about man’s responsibility to the Earth, including sharing the gospel. Frame writes:

Rational planning of the use of the earth’s resources becomes very difficult after the fall when sinful human beings seek greater portions of the earth at the expense of others.

Certainly, a balanced environmental policy requires of people and nations a level of cooperation that seems impossible now. … even scientific discussions often appear to be biased by ideology on one side or another. Without scientific work in which all have confidence, it is very difficult to know what to do to preserve the environment. Only a regenerated society will find agreement on the worldview questions sufficient to save the earth. So the chief need of the environment is evangelism. (Frame 2008)

Christians must not only be known for being against things, including the politicization of science to affect climate-change policy, but also a people who are supportive of efforts to preserve the earth’s natural beauty and use and conserve our natural resources wisely without harm to the poor. Climate change skepticism is not an excuse for inactivity. Frame writes:

Although God has a special concern for human life, he is concerned analogously for the whole creation, for all forms of life. He made man to have dominion over the world. But man is not only the lord of creation; he is himself a creature made of dust. And he is dependent on the rest of creation for sustenance. So, man is to use the resources of the world but is not to exploit or deplete them. If those resources are depleted, the natural consequence is that man himself suffers. Man must be a responsible steward of the earth if he is to preserve his own life… Man cannot fill and subdue the earth if he destroys the earth’s resources. His own welfare and the welfare of the earth go hand in hand. (Frame, 2008)

Where reasonable, Christians should support environmental policies that intelligently manage the earth’s natural resources without causing economic harm to people. Paul Harris writes: “I acknowledge that many of the solutions to climate change must involve states. However, this reality need not absolve capable individuals from explicit responsibility and obligation” (Harris, 2016).

The Sixth and Eighth Commandments: The Gift of Life and Regard for the Poor

Why should a woman living in sub-Saharan Africa be consigned to an existence of having to collect wood or dung for fuel when her life would be much better served by enhanced wealth through economic development? While the Sixth Commandment explicitly prohibits murder, in its broad sense, it is a command to support life, and that includes the quality of human life. This goes hand and hand with the Eighth Commandment’s broad sense of wealth and poverty.

With regard to the adoption of responsible environmental policies, “It is immoral and harmful to the earth’s poorest citizens to deny them the benefits of abundant, reliable, affordable electricity and other forms of energy (for homes, cars, airplanes, and factories) merely because it is produced by using fossil fuels” (Spencer, Driessen, and Beisner, 2005).

Stopping or reversing economic development in the world’s poor countries—with drastic restrictions on fossil fuel use would cause or keep poor nations impoverished. It would perpetuate what South Africa’s Leon Louw calls “human game preserves,” where Western tourists can see “cute, indigenous people at one with their environment and the wildlife.” But what climate activist—indeed what signer of the Climate Change—An Evangelical Call to Action—would willingly, for even a month, live in a mud hut in malarial-infested rural Africa under the indigenous conditions their policy prescription

would perpetuate? Who among them would be glad to drink the locals’ contaminated water, eat their paltry mold-infested food, breathe the smoke from their wood and dung fires, live twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year without lights, air conditioning and refrigeration? (Spencer, Driessen, and Beisner, 2005)

Americans are some of the richest people on the earth. It is, therefore the responsibility of the church in America to generously support financially those organizations helping to alleviate poverty. Paul wrote in Galatians 6:10, “So then as we have opportunity let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

In Conclusion: The Ethics of Earth Stewardship are Triperspectival

Christians must embrace a biblical framework for earth stewardship. This framework is tri-perspectival: it is existential, deontological, and teleological. The evangelical community—the church—should be known for its love and concern for the environment. It should be the church’s nature existentially to exist in harmony with the earth and its people, for it is God’s creation and we are its caretakers. Christianity should embrace Earth stewardship with one caveat: Christians must be wise to the consequences of policy decisions that may seem good at the moment or under pressure from the false assumption of having to do something. According to Proverbs 22:3 prudence guides a person to see danger in advance. “Wise and effective foresight and avoidance of risk is a biblical virtue. It would behoove Christians who want to make a positive contribution to environmental risk assessment and reduction to learn effective ways to do it” (Spencer, Driessen, and Beisner, 2005).

It is the church’s responsibility deontologically to help those affected by weather-related disasters, especially the poor, either by in-person volunteering or providing financial support to organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse, the American Red Cross, or para-church organizations. Southern Baptist churches, for instance, can link arms with the North American Mission Board (NAMB), which is often involved in coordinating disaster relief operations.

Frame includes many practical suggestions in his chapter on the Eighth Commandment and its broad application regarding wealth and poverty:

The church should take the lead in ministering to people in the midst of famine and natural disasters. We should take the lead in ministering to the “poorest of the poor,” who can find help nowhere else. We should engage in gospel-centered mercy ministries that not only meet the immediate needs but also teach academic skills, profitable trades, and more productive means of agriculture. We should create communities in the poorest parts of the world to demonstrate how Christ makes a difference in family and church life. And we should encourage government policies that allow other nations to trade and compete with ours on an equal basis. (Frame, 2008)

The church has the responsibility to open its mouth “for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute,” to open its mouth, and to “judge righteously, defend[ing] the rights of the poor and needy (Proverbs 31:8–9). This includes educating its members about a Christian’s responsibility to the environment in ways that avoid hurting the poor of the world. This can be as simple as leading a small group Bible study about Earth stewardship, or more challenging, like writing essays for online Christian venues, contributing to an environmental think-tank, or

crafting op-eds and letters to the editor of a local newspaper. I am not a “Christian culturalist,” and I understand that not every Christian has the gifts, calling, and station in life to be able to pull this off. But “Christians should seek to influence the world for Christ in some way, that is the Great Commission” (Frame, 2008).

Admittedly, avoiding the politics of climate change is a difficult task based on where we are in our political discourse in general and specifically with this hot-button topic where the rhetoric has become so heated and divisive it is almost impossible to offer a dissenting opinion to the alleged consensus without being cancelled—something of which I know firsthand (Harris, 2019).

Notwithstanding the consensus, we who are living in the modern, economically developed Western world must be ready to defend sound climate policies, placing the well-being of human beings in the forefront.

Writing in Poverty and Progress: Realities and Myths about Global Poverty, Deepak Lal offers a sobering reminder:

The greatest threat to the alleviation of the structural poverty of the Third World is the continuing campaign by Western governments, egged on by some climate scientists and green activists, to curb greenhouse emissions, primarily the CO2 from burning fossil fuels. …[I]t is mankind’s use of the mineral energy stored in nature’s gift of fossil fuels … accompanying the slowly rolling Industrial Revolution, [that] allowed the ascent from structural poverty which had scarred humankind for millennia. To limit the use of fossil fuels without adequate economically viable alternatives is to condemn the Third World to perpetual structural poverty. (Lal, 2013)

Other practical ideas might include sponsoring an environmentally friendly activity at your church—a workshop featuring an evangelical-based DVD series for example, such as Climate Change and the Christian (Beisner, n.d.); hosting or joining a beach or park cleanup project; volunteering at the local zoo; planting trees with neighbors on Arbor Day; or donating to Plant with a Purpose, a Christian organization that operates “at the intersection of poverty alleviation, environmental restoration, and spiritual renewal” (Plant with Purpose, n.d.). One can recycle cans, bottles, and paper; drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle (though with caution about the economics of electric vehicles and the ethical sourcing of their batteries’ key components; Rummo, 2022); or use public transportation or carpool with a friend. Some of these may seem trivial, but they support a good Christian testimony, demonstrate love to our neighbor, and may foster opportunities for gospel conversations based on the justification of our faith by our works before men (James 2:24). At a minimum, they demonstrate good citizenship. Most importantly, they fulfill the moral law expressed in the Ten Commandments and implement the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28.

If we believe that the gospel changes everything, then obedience to the Great Commission will be the most effective way to change the culture. And that will encourage those whose lives have been changed to fulfill the cultural mandate, becoming biblical Earth stewards. John Frame writes:

The gospel is not only a message for individuals telling them how to avoid God’s wrath. It is also a message about a kingdom, a society, a new community, a new covenant, a new

family, a new nation, a new way of life, and, therefore, a new culture. … The Great Commission (Matt. 28: 19–20) tells us not only to tell people the gospel and get them baptized but also to teach them to obey everything Jesus has commanded us. Everything. The gospel creates new people, who are committed to Christ in every area of their lives. People like these will change the world. They will fill and rule the earth for the glory of Jesus. (Frame, 2008)

When we fulfill the Great Commission, we are “keep[ing] his commandments,” demonstrating that we love God (John 14:15) and our neighbor. That is a worthy telos. And beyond that we are in fact doing the highest good, the summum bonum, giving glory to God for his creation.

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