“The Bible. The good book. The word. There are 490 references to heaven. 530 references to love. Yet it makes over 1000 references to the earth.”

That’s from the video-introduction of a new edition of Scripture, The Green Bible. On page fifty-seven of this week’s TIME Magazine is an article by the title, The Good Book Goes Green. A color-coded Bible is geared to environmentalists. Here’s an excerpt from this review of this new edition of the Bible,

Green turns through the Bible like a vine. There are the Garden and Noah’s olive branch. The oaks under which Abraham met with angels. The “tree standing by the waterside” in Psalms. And there is Jesus, the self-proclaimed “true vine,” who describes the Kingdom of Heaven as a mustard seed that grows into a tree “where birds can next.” He does on a cross of wood, and when he rises Mary Magdelene mistakes him for a gardener.

Now there is a Bible trying to make gardeners of us all. On Oct. 7, Harper Collins is releasing The Green Bible, a Scripture for the Prius age that calls attention of more than 1,000 verses related to nature by printing them in a pleasant shade of forest green, much as red-letter editions of the Bible encrimson the words of Jesus.

Here’s a video from The Green Bible’s home page;

This new Bible printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink has a tree printed on the front. The goal of the publication of this edition of the Bible is revealed in the subtitle, “Understand the Bible’s powerful message for the Earth.”

Thoughtful Christians should ask the question, What are we to make of this edition of Scripture?

Although the subtitle of the Bible is overstated, the question of what the Bible says about the environment is a fine question. All Bible readers should agree – God placed us in the earth as rulers over the earth and stewards of all that God made. Further, the story of Scripture is played out on the stage of the environment that is the earth. But the cosmos is more than just a backdrop. It is cursed when we sin and it is made new when human redemption is complete. The Green Bible people are right, the Bible makes many references to the earth and earthy things. One of my personal favorite references to animals comes in God’s words to Jonah in the last verse of the book named after this prophet; “And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” Jonah didn’t care enough about the children in that wicked city. But apparently he was supposed to care about the cows as well!

The trouble begins when a legitimate sub point is esteemed as the BIG point of the Bible. By framing this edition of the Bible with a pronounced emphasis on “The Earth,” the publisher has undermined the very ground for the responsibility they seek to foster. The creation derives its worth from the Creator who made it as a home for the image-bearers be made it for. The articles may be fine. I have not read them. However helpful they may be, the narrative of Scripture is not about the stage on which that narrative plays out.

Well, what does the Bible say about creation? While much can be said, the following six points are the most important things we might say about the environment that God created.

1) It’s good. The earth was made wholly good by God as a declaration of the glory of God (Genesis 1-2; Psalm 19).

2) It’s for humans. Humans were made in God’s image and are the pinnacle of creation. God gave to Adam and his race dominion over the earth, which entails rulership and responsibility. Thus, the “environment” is not an end in itself (Genesis 1-2; Psalm 8).

3) Adam and his race traded the glory of God for the glory of creation. Adam’s greatest sin against creation was to value it too much! He enjoyed the creation the wrong way, placing his hope in the word of a snake. This is what happens when we desire what God has made without regard for the Creator to whom it points (Genesis 3; Romans 1).

4) It’s cursed. As a consequence of the injustice of humankind’s moral and spiritual rebellion, God subjected the physical creation to futility and corruption. Thus, our greatest harm to the creation was brought on by our sin against God (Genesis 3; Romans 8).

5) It will be redeemed. Jesus Christ, the agent of the Father’s creative work, entered into creation to redeem humanity and to redeem some from Adam’s race to a right relationship to God. With the redemption of people to himself, God will also renew creation (John 1; Hebrews 1; Colossians 1; Romans 8).

6) It will be destroyed and recreated. One day, God will complete what he started in Christ when he does away with this present order and makes a new Creation (Revelation 21).

To be sure, Christ’s incarnation reinforces a Christian commitment to the value of creation. God is not removed from his creation as the deist might suggest. Neither is the physical ream evil, as the Buddhist might suggest. God actually entered into what he made. Further, there is a cosmic dimension to the redemption Christ came to provide. God sent Christ that through him he might reconcile “all things” to himself and bring about a new creation.

But Jesus did not enter the earth for the earth. Neither does he redeem humans for the sake of the earth. God’s creative and redemptive purposes are about God’s glory in the praise he receives from those who uniquely bear his image.

In classic fallen form, humans invert the proper ordering of God’s designs and purposes. God reveals to us by his Holy Spirit his redemptive plan in Christ on the pages of Scripture and we put a green tree on front and tell each other how important it is to recycle.

This edition of the Bible is a reminder to those who preach the word to let Scripture speak for itself. We cannot and must not wrap our preaching and our teaching in the soap-boxes and fads of the day. The Bible says many things about many things and the Bible says much about the earth. But the Bible is not about the earth. Both the Bible and the earth are about God and, more specifically, about the God who came to earth as a man in the person of Jesus Christ.

There may be 1000 verses in Scripture about creation, but every verse of the Bible is about Christ and every verse looks forward to the new-creation he brings.

This is a reminder to us that structures matter.

(Sept. 18) – When Hurricane Ike crashed ashore in Texas with 110 mph winds, it left almost nothing behind in the small, coastal town of Gilchrist.

Aerial photographs taken after the storm revealed that the neighborhood that stretched for miles along the narrow peninsula had been swept away with just one exception: a single home left standing, seemingly untouched.

Some viewers of surreal photographs showing the yellow house that remained amid the wasteland argued that it may be fake. In a debate on iReport.com, a woman named Judy Hudspeth jumped in with a stunning statement: “This is my sister’s house. It is real,” she wrote.

Hudspeth uploaded a of the home taken in May that silenced the skeptics. She explained that her sister and her sister’s husband, Pam and Warren Adams, rebuilt the home in 2006 after it had been destroyed by Hurricane Rita in 2005.

Hudspeth said they hired a contractor to build a structure that could withstand a Category 5 hurricane and watched over the process to assure it was done right.

The couple did evacuate before the storm and planned to return on Thursday to survey the damage.

Structures matter in the physical realm. The capacity of a building to weather a hurricane will rest on how that building was built. There may be some indication of the home’s strength from the roadside, but the true test of a building’s strength will come with the winds. How does the structure manage the outside forces that press upon its walls?

What’s true of physical structures is also true of belief structures. Jesus says in Luke 6:46-49,

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.  But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Our worldview provides the moral structure for our lives, directing our decisions. The fittedness of that worldview to the world in which we live will be shown in the clarity with which we navigate the decisions of life and the result of those decisions.

In Luke 6, Jesus reminds his disciples that what we do with him makes every difference for our lives. Jesus claimed for himself the position of Lord over humankind. If this audacious claim is true, then Jesus Christ is the moral key to life.

His Lordship may not protect us from the event of a hurricane, but our surrender to his Lordship will provide us with light in the dark and strength against hurricane winds of a fallen world.

A few years ago my schedule provided for some time at home during the daily Oprah hour. With the goal of both entertainment and education, I tuned in for a number of shows. One day Oprah would spend an hour fighting child abuse, and the next parading the swinger lifestyle as a new and morally legitimate approach to marriage. In her own words to a dissenting guest, “Listen, marriage is changing folks.” The effect was that of a bait and switch. You find yourself nodding in agreement with her and then, as you are nodding, she promotes something that goes against your best judgment. Do you take her lead? Or do you disagree with her? Everyone is clapping. Everyone is cheering. She was right about that, she must be right about this too.

An essential controlling principle of Oprah’s carefully expressed belief system is a commitment to the subjectivity of truth. That is, the belief that truth changes from person to person. Oprah’s dual commitment to certain moral imperatives combined with this basic religious commitment exemplify the contradiction that defines the postmodern age.

Today, a trip to Oprah’s site will introduce you to a man, M. Gary Neuman. The show is titled, “Why Men Cheat.” No doubt, the show will be an effort to help men and women stay together in their marriages and highlight Neuman’s book, How to Affair Proof Your Marriage. Neuman has also done some work to help the children of divorced parents. In Neuman we find an example of Oprah’s religion at its best, offering moral imperatives that resonate with normal people while undermining the moral category of truth that grounds those imperatives.

Neuman is Jewish by descent but not in his allegiance. He is a man of his times. He accepts the Bible as useful, especially the first five books of the Bible, but he doesn’t care if they are true. He doesn’t care if we believe them. He cares only that we believe in ourselves.

From the introduction of his new book on spirituality, How to Make a Miracle;

Nothing is Impossible.

It just might take a little longer.

Spirituality is quite a challenge. Writing a book about it seems impossible. It almost assumes there is some finite area of it that can conform to the written page. And so my personal challenge to share my version, my journey, if you will, of my sense of spirituality began. How do I show you what I see? How do I share that delightful moment when I’m breathing through my soul, when everything makes sense? How do I help you find your own unique version of the same? With this seemingly insurmountable challenge I began writing and found that it was easier than I thought. As spirituality has a habit of doing, once I allowed myself to focus on it, it flowed rather easily and I’ve had the pleasure of growing through the experience.

There was another concern in writing this book. Here’s the deal. In today’s world, spirituality is divided into two camps. Religion-God based while the other is person centered-finding a soul within. Unfortunately, I can’t separate the two which can cause great alarm to many. Just the word “God” canthrow readers into a frightened tizzy. I do use this term and I do discuss characters from the Bible (I use

“Torah” throughout to refer to the five books of Moses). But my intention is only to get you to the place I’ve been, a place deep within you that requires you to build your own personal connectedness to spirituality and the world around you. I may talk about God but as you’ll see, “God” is what you will make of it. It is a name that you will largely define and that definition will likely be quite different than mine and others. With this in mind, I’ve written this book for those both far and near from religion and spirituality.

Yes, I am a rabbi and yes I use the Torah as a source for my spiritual search. But don’t confuse me for someone who has a specific religious agenda.

Allow yourself to hear some of the meaningful lessons I’ve gleaned from ancient stories having little to do with whether you believe them as true or not. I’m not asking you to believe them. But I am asking you to believe in you. You are a miracle and within you is the key to creating many more miracles than you realize.

For Neuman, the ultimate solution to life’s problems is inside ourselves. He tips his hat to Torah, but his real trust is the self.

In the following paragraph Neuman does something interesting. Neuman has clearly rejected the modernist’s assumption that everything can be explained away in materialistic categories. He clearly believes that there is more to us than atoms. Still, Neuman mingles and even grounds his subjectivism in science.

He continues,

E=MC2=YOU

There are many explanations to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. But for me it comes down to this description by Bill Bryson in his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything.

“In simplest terms, what the equation says is that mass and energy have an equivalence. They are two forms of the same thing: energy is liberated matter;matter is energy waiting to happen. Since C2 (the speed of light times itself) is a truly enormous number, what the equation is saying is that there is a huge amount, a really huge amount_ of energy bound up in every material thing. You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average–sized adult you will contain within your modest frame noless that 7 times 10 to the 18th power joules of potential energy-enough to explode with the force of  thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew  how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.”

Science has proven that you and I have unfathomable energy locked up inside us. This energy is waiting to be unleashed and your ability to unlock it speaks to your inner godliness. There are people who made a difference to this world more powerful than the impact of thirty large hydrogen bombs and others leave barely a trace of themselves. How much of your energy will impact the world?

Neuman’s morality is a morality without a Maker. As such, it is a morality without meaning.

So what are we to make of this?

First, even if Neuman doesn’t know where his moral sensibilities come from, Christian’s can appreciate the reflection of God’s image in any human person who gives him or herself to the protection and enjoyment of good a thing like marriage.

Humans recognize and treasure the safety and pleasure of right relationships. We know a bad thing for what it is and we know a good thing for what it is – most of the time. When someone wants to help people affair-proof their marriages, we can offer praise to God for this manifestation of common grace. We give God credit for the idea of marriage, the joy that it brings and the strength of character that both stays in a marriage and is enhanced by marriage.

Second, Christians should recognize the bankruptcy of moral instruction whose ground and goal is not the Triune God of Scripture.

About marriage, Neuman writes, “I don’t believe in ‘okay,’ ‘decent,’ or ‘solid’ marriages. I’m against them…I believe only in great marriages, and that you should expect and reach for no less.” Great!

On his web site, Neuman asks,

“Do you send that funny e-mail to your friends at work—but not to your spouse? Do you chew over all the problems on the job so thoroughly with your colleagues that by the time you get home, you just don’t feel like going into it all over again? Do you get a secret thrill out of flirting with coworkers—thinking it’s safe because you know it’s not going any further? If so, you’re committing emotional infidelity—and you’re draining your marriage of the energy it needs to be great.”

Those are good questions. That is a good conclusion.

He continues, “the book offers guidelines that are often counterintuitive, even outrageous or shocking. But they work. Dare to limit contact with members of the opposite sex. Dare to need each other. Dare to put in writing the nitty-gritty realities of a marriage plan. Dare to put your marriage before your kids or job.”

More good stuff… that is, only if you care.

Who decided, after all, that affairs are bad and that monogamy is good? According to Neuman, God hasn’t a thing to do with marriage.

Maybe we don’t need people writing books about how to affair-proof marriage, but about how to help the “victimized” spouse wake up to the reality that affairs are both inevitable and acceptable. In fact, maybe affairs should not only be tolerated and endured but celebrated and encouraged. Maybe Neuman’s book promotes an outmoded, unhelpful and even destructive view of marriage? Perhaps its the assumption that marriage entails monogamy that gives rise to marital problems in the first place.

Who decides?

At the end of the day, the problem with affairs is not the frustration or even disintegration of any human relationship, but of the offense that an affair against the glory of God.

Moral instruction that is not grounded in God misses the goal of his glory.

As Christians who participate in the truly “great” marriage to which human marriage points, we must be ever ready to live out and promote a vision of marriage that has God as its ground and his glory as its goal.

Third, Christians should measure the voices of culture by the Voice of God himself revealed by his Holy Spirit in the written Word of God.

The Oprah enterprise is a machine of seduction.

As Oprah’s viewers and Neuman’s readers evaluate the value of his advice on marriage and on God, they will accept or reject what he writes on the basis of some other standard by which they measure what he says. For many of Oprah’s viewers the standard will be what Oprah thinks about him. If she says he’s right on God, then he’s right on God.

For others, the standard will be themselves. They will reject some things and accept others. Consciously or unconsciously, they are measuring the value of what they find by the standard of their own best judgment. This is what we all do as sinners.

For those who are no longer in Adam but in Christ, we must stand at all times in submission to the word of God, lest Neuman’s good advice to lead us to embrace his more subtle but destructive teachings, or lest his good advice leave us satisfied to define a “great” marriage apart from the glory of God.

Neuman’s work is an example of how the fallen human mind makes sense of the moral tornado of this present age apart from a knowledge of the Triune God of Scripture. Engaging in a form of moral plagiarism, Neuman fights for something good while denying the One who made it so.

In a recent article published at the Independent, Emily Dugan contributes yet another piece of Google-analysis to the pool.

Concerning the power of the Google-brand, she writes,

Now Google has become a symbol of the internet as a whole. A YouGov survey published last week found that Britons suffered from “discomgooglation” – a term used to describe how lost people feel if they can’t get on the internet.

Responding to the survey, more than three-quarters of internet users in the UK said they could not live without the web. More than 50 per cent also found the internet more important than religion.

In a very real sense, the natural and unavoidable integration of Google into every facet of our experience on the internet and, consequently, much of our lives, reflects something of what true religion is meant to do. As Google helps us to properly and efficiently navigate the contours of the internet, the gospel and the religion it cultivates does not replace most of what makes up our lives, but reframes its various parts.

Before Google Reader, for example, I made visits several times daily to about a dozen different blogs and news sites. If I made another stop in my day to check my email, I would inevitably make the rounds to see if there were any new gifts of interest at any one of these online locations.

But now, with Google Reader I can browse all of the news from various online outlets on one screen. Almost like an email in-box, we can be more current in less time.

In this way, Google Reader did not add some new obligation or time-taking commitment to our already busy online lives. Google helped us to consolidate our time and properly expend our energy for our own greater good. Google Reader is not in competition with the many good things we want to read, it brings out the best and helps to maximize our opportunity in our reading.

The same could be said for Google Maps, for Google Search and a host of other Google applications.

So it is the case with the gospel and the true religion that it cultivates.

For some, there is difficulty in coming to Christ, because of the imposition that such a relationship necessarily entails. It is a good thing for someone who has not trusted Christ to understand that such a change of allegiance brings with it a total reordering of life’s priorities. Surely, to become a Christian means taking up a cross and following Jesus, it means loosing our lives to save them, it means counting everything as loss for the sake of gaining Christ. Conversion, we might say, is a great inversion of reality.

But this inversion of reality is not ultimately difficult. Remember, we lose our life…to save our life. We count everything as loss precisely because the greater gain of knowing Christ is greater, incomparably so.

The insertion of the gospel into our lives does not add one more thing to frustrate the rest. Our investment in “church” is not something we must do now if we want happiness later. Rather, the gospel reorders and sets aright the many aspects of our lives. The gospel fixes our life-decision making engine, keeping us from any destructive course we might set for ourselves. The gospel is the perfect medicine for the struggles we encounter with other people and with ourselves. The gospel is the only answer to the problems of sin, of death and of hell.

David Letterman is a funny, funny man. His popularity and the popularity of funny people like Letterman is a testimony to the longing of every human person for happiness. While I might find distaste in some of his humor or the political ideology he promotes, Letterman’s late night show is a painless moment for many people after a day of frustration in a fallen world.

As with all entertainment, Letterman and the late night bunch run out of usefulness fast when the great weighty questions of life press in upon us, like, for example, What happens when I die?

I can remember turning on the stereo after leaving the hospital where my dad was threatened by a sickness that could take his life. I listened to about ten seconds of whatever song was on and turned the radio off. The radio was fine when everything else was fine. But everything else wasn’t fine – and the song on the radio, however catchy it was, had nothing to offer me in that moment.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone Magazine, Letterman shared one of the more moving moments in his career. The AP reports,

In the Rolling Stone article, Letterman discusses guests including Madonna, Oprah Winfrey and Howard Stern, with the most moving remarks about musician Warren Zevon, who appeared on “Late Show” shortly before his 2003 death from cancer.

Letterman recalled his “heartbreaking” meeting with Zevon in a dressing room after the show.

“Here’s a guy who had months to live and we’re making small talk. And as we’re talking, he’s taking his guitar strap and hooking it, wrapping it around, then he puts the guitar into the case and he flips the snaps on the case and says, `Here, I want you to have this, take good care of it.’ And I just started sobbing.

“He was giving me the guitar that he always used on the show. I felt like, `I can’t be in this movie, I didn’t get my lines.’ That was very tough,” Letterman said.

That last line reveals something of great importance for us. At the end of the day, we are all in a movie we hate. Though experts at distracting ourselves from the pain, we are all living in a nightmare. Even the better seasons of our life – and there may be many of these – are all moving toward the same end, namely, death. Every person we love will die. Eventually, we will die. Our children will die.

We take great pains to bring the murderer to justice for taking another persons life because life is precious. It is the greatest of offenses to end another persons life. This seems obvious to all of us. But a greater tragedy than the murder of some is the inevitable death of every human person.

But praise be to God, we have been given lines.

The Holy Spirit wrote through the Apostle Paul “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). And we can say our lines because Jesus said his, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 1:25).

Thankfully, the Bible is more than a book of stories that teach moral lessons. It is one unified story that explains all of reality. Much to our comfort, this story both explains the pain of death and provides the only comforting solution.

In Romans 8, the Apostle Paul writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us…For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Now in this hope we are saved.”

For this reason, Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “we do not grieve as others do who have no hope.” We grieve death, but we grieve in another way. We grieve with hope.

Death is a reality. Our suffering in death is for a reason. We are sinners.

But in Jesus Christ we can be safe from death.

May God shine the light of the glory of Jesus Christ into the heart of David Letterman. He is a man of many laughs, but at the end of the day, he is also a man of many tears. May Letterman embrace Christ by faith and may he become a missionary for the sake of the gospel.

The fact of my own conversion fills any such prayer with hope and with expectation. This is something God can and may delight to do.