Reforesting Faith by Matthew Sleeth

Author:Matthew Sleeth [Sleeth, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

TREES HELP US THINK LONG TERM

In the end God declared the condemnations of Job’s friends to be wrong and the words of Job to be true. “For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” To underscore this point, God repeated his statement (42:7–8).

There is hope for a tree, and we share this hope. No matter how difficult, painful, and tragic our circumstances, we will see our Redeemer. God certified Job’s statements, and the biology of trees bears witness. What followed was both an irony and a stunning exoneration of Job’s hope.

As Job was getting ready to declare his belief in God’s ability to resurrect him, he longed to have his words of truth remembered. “Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book!” (19:23). Today, thousands of years later, we study Job’s words. The only thing that has lived as long as these lines is (you guessed it) a tree.

Even today, the Bible is the most widely available book on earth. In selecting the metaphor to teach us about resurrection and the timescales of eternity, God chose the one widely dispersed living thing that mimics the promise of life after death: a tree.

Trees live on a different timescale than humans—some live for thousands of years. So does the Bible.

And trees can come back to life after being chopped down. So can humans who embrace the tree of life and the promises of God’s living Word.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.