Function

When we hear that God created, we have a tendency to think that God made something out of nothing. This is because of our western heritage and is reflected in the gospel of John, which says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

However, in Old Testament times, the primary idea of creation was not making something out of nothing, but bringing order out of chaos by assigning function. For example, Enki and the World Order, a Sumerian story from before 2000 B.C., tells of the way the creator god brought order to the zones of the earth by assigning them functions such as agriculture or engineering. In the same way, Genesis 1 tells us that God made two big lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. Those are their functions.

When God created humans, he gave them a purpose, a function, a destiny. He said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let him rule over the fish, the livestock, the birds, and the wild animals.” God created man with the purpose of dominion. It’s our job to care for creation, right from the start.