A short Bible study I wrote a while ago
“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” – Proverbs 12:10
Let us start by clearing away two misconceptions. The first one being that animals are of equal importance to humans; they are not. The second one being the fact that humans are worth more than animals is an excuse to condone cruelty to animals. Regarding the order of command: we most definitely are in command over the animals. Genesis 1:28 shows us God gave us the honour and the right to command this earth. We have dominion over the animals. Let us however, never use this verse as an excuse for mistreating animals. We have dominion over our children; do we have the right to mistreat them? Of course not. Kings have dominion over their people; do they have the right to oppress them? Of course not. Animal cruelty is strictly condemned in the Bible. Although not the central theme, the Bible still instructs us to treat them well. And is it not written “For God so loved the world”? Not only the religious Jews, not only the righteous, not only humans, but His whole creation.
When God created the animals and man on the very same day, He saw that it was good. We can imagine how joyful He must have been when He created us in His own image! It shouldn’t be too difficult as well to imagine how much love and effort He put in all these vast numbers of different species of animals. Each animal carefully designed to evoke feelings of tenderness, awe, laughter or admiration in us. Let us not forget that He used the same design patterns for animals and humans. Mammals and of course especially primates share a very similar anatomy and physiology. And even psychological similarities are found in many species. Christians are sometimes scared of these similarities, perhaps afraid that it will devalue the uniqueness of man, but this is of course not the case. Man is created in the image of God. But it is safe to say that the whole creation bears His signature, is of Him. The Old Testament tells that man received the breath of life making him a living creature. The latter in Hebrew reads nephesh chayyah, and this term exactly is also applied to animals. The word nephesh is translated into Greek as psyche. The word that is translated into English as soul. Some Christians are sort of shocked by this bit of knowledge, but it is there for the reading.
Let us also not forget that they were not created as food! Genesis 1:29-30 specifically state that both man and beast were created as vegetarians. It is no coincidence that when Isaiah speaks of Jesus to come, and when he offers us a glimpse of the kingdom of God to come, he vividly describes the relationship of man and the animal kingdom, and between the animals themselves. Is it too far-fetched to assume that when he writes that the most fearful predator, the one species you would predominantly describe as a carnivore, the lion, will eat straw again (Isaiah 11:7), he hints at all creatures being vegetarian again?
The first ever mentioning of a dead animal in the Bible is after the fall of man. God gave Adam and Eve garments of skin and clothed them (Genesis 3:21). The fall of man clearly has an impact on the animals. But it gets worse. After man’s fall, things get uglier. Evil spreads, death, corruption, hatred fill the earth. Then God puts a halt to it all. Only one God-fearing man and his family will be saved, Noah. And it may be clear to see how much God actually loves His whole creation, when rather than having Noah build a small vessel, He instructs him to build an ark; an ark that can house a pair of every kind of animal that lives on the land. What an enormous task! A big effort placed on Noah so that all animals may survive.
But although mankind has been given a second chance, it is no longer the perfect Garden of Eden. Not at all! Genesis 9:2-3 reads: “The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.”
So from that moment on we live in a world where it is kill or be killed. But let us not focus on the consumption of meat. It may be clear that at this moment we are clearly allowed to eat meat. We find references to abstaining from eating meat and drinking wine, as well as warnings against people who forbid you to eat meat, as visions indicating that all animals are clean to eat now.
The Bible has couple of very striking verses that illustrate how close God is with the animals and how humans love and are to love them. The innocence of sheep and the love of a shepherd for his sheep is obviously used and often quoted in the parable of the lost sheep. But a little gem found in the Bible is when God speaks to David through Nathan and needs to get a point across to him. The analogy He uses is that of the love of a poor man and a little ewe lamb. 2 Samuel 12:1-6 pictures the love of this man for his lamb, that shared his food, even drank from his cup and slept in his arms. Very strikingly God uses this picture in order to evoke outrage in David when a rich man kills this lamb! And there are many more beautiful verses like this. God is known to watch every labor of the doe (Job 39:1). Animals are sometimes to see angels before humans (Numbers 22:23). Etcetera.
Scattered across the Bible we find verses on treating animals well; the old Jewish laws are full of them. But in today’s world the reality is bitter and far from God’s kingdom, so is it also for animals. Around 100 million animals (counting vertebrates only) are subjected to animal experimentation annually. Rather than focusing on God’s kingdom and salvation through His Son, we sacrifice animals again, only not to God but the new god: science. Knowledge of the various kinds of experiments that are conducted for toxicology, arms testing, pain psychology, cosmetics etc would leave any Christian (and non-Christian) heartbroken. Often the sheer cruelty of these experiments, held in secretive labs, is so staggering, it defies words. The irony of proving animal altruism by allowing animals to bond together and then forcing one group to watch the other group being tortured and decapitated, whilst measuring stress responses. Are these actual experiments glorifying God? Are they even glorifying humans? When it comes to medical research, the phrase “saving human lives” is often used to shield off any criticism, but there is a lot of criticism on the reliability of statistics gathered from animal testing, also from within the scientific field. A lot.
And the list of animals being used in our dominion over them continues. Roughly 50 million animals are skinned for fashionable fur annually. Needless to say both the living conditions and the killing methods range from cruel to extremely cruel. There is a lot of room for improvement, to put it mildly, in the way we raise our livestock. We live in a world where rap stars host violent dog fights. We are far away from His kingdom indeed. Is it not us Christians that should be His tools for establishing the new earth and the new heaven? Is it not us Christians that should be forerunners of the animal welfare movement? Are we not giving away our role there to extremists and militant organizations? Is it not us Christians that should make an effort to battle any kind of cruelty to our innocent co-inhabitants of this beautiful earth God gave us? Is it not us Christians that should set the trend of buying ecological meat, cruelty-free cosmetics and such? Is it not us that should express in our daily lives an understanding how holy the gift of the breath of life is, and out of reverence for our Creator, and out of obedience to His Word, treat it with love and respect? If only we could see creation through His eyes.
Let us pray.
“Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’” – Revelation 5:13
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