Confessional Missiology: Dust to Dust
A few months ago I launched a blog series to explore the implications of a Confessional Missiology and the Doctrine of Creation related to the mission of God, and consequently, to us. I have to admit, that the events that transpired over this past weekend at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania caused me to stop short. Regardless of our political affiliation and/or disagreements, we live in a country where we exercise the freedom to give voice to our opinions, and violations of such liberty should, and surely do, give us pause.
As I took an anxious breath, I was suddenly reminded of the many people in our country and around the world who, in unspeakable ways, are also suffering injustices. Children have been left without family or families left without their children. Millions of people just like us, teeter on the brink of starvation, entire towns have been leveled by hurricanes or fire or flood, nations are at war with other nations, people on every continent are living in a constant state of fear.
What difference does the doctrine of creation make in a world gone mad?
Before the weekend’s events I’d been researching and gathering information related to the Sahara dust plume. I remember first learning about the phenomenon in 2020, when the biggest plume on record sifted its way to North America (apropo for 2020). Every year, the Sahara dust plume carries 180 million tons of mineral-rich-dust from Africa, to the Amazon rainforest, to the Mediterranean, and eventually to North America. These tiny particles fertilize plants and nourish ocean life and play a vital role in the earth’s ecosystem. Although North Africa is the main global source of dust, the so-called dust belt extends from the Chinese and Mongolian Gobi Desert to the Mauritanian Coast.
God, the Creator of all things, made even dust for a purpose.
We are introduced to dust in the first two chapters of Genesis where we are given an intimate look at the Creator at work. God, after a full few days of bringing forth light, water, livestock, creeping things, and beasts, declares, “Let us make humankind in our image and after our likeness…so God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them male and female…God formed humankind of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and humankind became a living creature” (Gen 1:26-27; 2:7).
This remarkable act of creating lends a sense of mystery and grandeur to, well, to dust!
Next, God calls humankind to make much of this created earth—to kick up some dust and plant a garden, to dig in the dust and discover gold, to love in the dust and make babies whose descendants will be as numerous as dust and sand and stars.
Somehow, dust is integral to being created in God’s image.
Puzzles and Surprise
The puzzle of this dusty business is that God formed us not from some precious alloy that holds up under fire, he formed humankind with the stuff we flick off our sleeves. The great sufferer Job, “pinched from a piece of clay,” finds himself reduced to dust and ashes (Job 33:4–6).
The surprise is that God often meets us in the dark places. Hannah worships the One who answered her pained longing for life in her barren womb. She worships the One who “raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” (1 Sam 2:8).
Isaiah describes God, the one who created us to till the soil from which we are formed, as the one who “measures the waters of the earth in the hollow of his hand and marks off the heavens with a span.”
God, our God, “encloses the dust of the earth in a measure and weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. The nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust” (Isa 40:12–17).
We are minuscule in comparison to God.
Dust—wiped from my furniture and floors just today—is sometimes valuable, other times abhorred and dirty. Dust is mineral-rich on the one hand, and terrible for the lungs on the other. It’s at once the stuff we are made of and the stuff we shake off our feet (Luke 9:5).
The Doctrine of Creation reminds and assures us that the God we love gives meaning and purpose to these little tiny particles.
God rules and reigns over all things. Even the dust.
Hope from the Dust
Returning to where this post started, when faced with a sometimes grim reality, the most sensible place to turn is to our Creator who makes all the difference in challenging and confusing times. The Creator acts in history, hears and answers our cries, heals and provides, feeds and shelters. God reigns over politics, governments, and all nations.
Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, “My Counsel shall stand and I will accomplish my purpose (Isaiah 46:8-10).
God provides for us a window into the past. “In the beginning God created” (Gen 1:1). He also reveals a vivid picture of a bright and magnificent future. “Behold, I am making all things new” (Rev 21:5). We stake our lives on this revelation.
Therefore, we have hope.
The apostle Paul, in otherworldly language strains to explain the reverberating effects of this marvelous truth. He does so by comparing Adam, the man of dust with Jesus, the man of heaven.
The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven
(1 Cor 15:42–49).
So, I contend that the Doctrine of Creation and a Confessional Missiology makes all the difference in our view of life and the world, and lends substance to our gospel witness. We actually know the One who created dust.
