Our Job as Gardenkeepers

What does the creational mandate mean for us believers today?

Does the Great Commission replace it by emphasizing spiritual multiplication over physical lineage?

Since 2 Peter 3 tells us all creation is going to be dissolved away in fire in the future, do we stop taking care of God's creation? Or do we let forests burn, mock at recycling campaigns, and ignore abused animals?

Perhaps believers who believe we can abandon the creation mandate (in its literal sense) are trying to avoid the humanist, social gospel in the 1980's and 90's that prized physical needs over Jesus Christ as the means to 'make the world a better place'.

But God would be quite a deceptionist if he let me feel the way I did today. While on my way to school, I saw a three-week-old-ish kitten wet, lonely and mewing very loudly in the drain. It was most probably carried off by the morning rain. For a kitten the size of my short-fingered palm, it must have been terrifying. Immediately and instinctively, I wanted to help Kitty. I wanted to grab a towel and buy cat's milk and skip class and bring it home.

Turned out there are were three others washed further down the drain, and they were 'adopted' by a few girls who live in the vicinity. For a while, I was worried and hoped the kids take care of the kittens properly.

And just a while ago, I finally saw my neighbor's cats again after they went into hiding for a few days from a stray cat who wanted to fight with one of them. I play with them so they come to me. When we heard that street cat calling, the cats hid for a while but they ended not being afraid, because they knew I was around. And I was bigger and more powerful than that street cat, like God promised when he restated to Noah's family the command to multiply and rule over His creation.

Maybe I'm not making much sense because my thoughts are preliminary. But I want to know what God says about environmentalism and loving animals. It's pretty obvious why, but I want to know how to defend it.

I don't know how to do up captions, but that's cute lil Ginger of Little Chapel after an hour of 'quiet time' with her, and this is sky...in Singapore!