God calls us to be stewards of His creation. A proper, biblical understanding of resources and of humanity’s relationship to nature provides the basis for a solid environmental ethic. It also protects us from the tendency among many in the wider environmental movement to idolize nature. This lesson emphasizes the need to distinguish between two things that often get confused. On the one hand, there’s the non-negotiable biblical command to be good stewards of the natural environment. On the other hand, there are the various claims about how best to do this, claims about which people of good will and intelligence may disagree.

This second lesson in the series also encourages participants to look at the trade-offs for various environmental policies and remember that, as stewards, we often are called to make hard choices and to remember other stewardship responsibilities, such as our responsibility to the world’s poor.