Welcome to a breakpoint, a daily look and an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

When most Christians hear the word creation, what comes to mind are concerns about the age of the earth

and the important battles between intelligent design and naturalistic evolution.

In these instances considerations of creation are primarily focused on how the world was made.

Now those questions are incredibly important, but there's also other things that Christians

must consider, especially in a culture like ours.

Namely, we have to wrestle with what it means that God created the world,

why he created the world, and the implications from both.

Another way to think about it is Christians need to be really clear

on what creation is for and what our place is in it.

It's tempting to see the biblical story of creation as

kind of God's plan A, something that was quickly discarded on account of human

sin. In this view, Christ worked to redeem the world and the work of the church are just considered

kind of backup plans.

And in this view, the Christian life is often reduced to just personal salvation, and the world

around us is reduced to a kind of ticking time

bomb that's just waiting to be destroyed. This however is not consistent with the

deep hope that the Clink argues, and I quote here, the goal of every Christian is not a departure to an

otherworldly heaven somewhere in the clouds, but a coming down of heaven to Earth

and the renewal of all creation.

To get a better picture of God's eternal purpose for his people,

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