THE GREEN BIBLE (Friday Church News Notes, February 29, 2008,
www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Green
Bible, the first environmentally-themed Bible, is scheduled for
publication by HarperOne in the fall of this year. Based on the New
Revised Standard Version, The Green Bible will use green ink to
highlight passages that deal with the environment (which won't
require much green ink!) and will feature commentaries by
environmentalists and a "green trail guide" of
environmentalist-thinking Christian leaders through history. Mark
Tauber, vice president of HarperOne, says: "Going green has become a
top concern among many Christians as they begin to see protecting all
of creation as a biblical obligation. Our Green Bible offers them a
new lens to identify how caring for creation comes right out of the
Scriptures" (Christian Retailing Newsletter, Dec. 3, 2007). At the
New Baptist Covenant Celebration in Atlanta in January former
Vice-President Al Gore was presented with a Green Bible, but it only
had a green cover and even Al will have to wait until the fall to get
a "real" Green Bible. The Bible does not support the modern
environmentalist movement and its frenzy over "global warming."
Bible-believing Christians are not the polluters of the earth and we
appreciate clean water and healthy air as much as anyone, but we also
know that the earth is under God's curse because of man's fall and is
destined to be burned up and replaced. That is the "global warming"
we need to be most concerned about. We are not going to save the
earth, but by God's grace we can seek to save souls before it is too
late. "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men
count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that
any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall
melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein
shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:9-10).