The Words of the Gavin Family
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The Words of the Gavin Family |
Leena Vincenz-Gavin is a College student blessed to Jario Gavin. She lives in Chicago together with her parents Reiner and Barbara Vincenz.
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (KJV)
My Translation
After seeing His children created so perfectly and so much like Him, He blessed them by saying unto them: Be fruitful; grow in your relationship with Me, Multiply; create a beautiful family, And have dominion over all creation by taking care of it the way I will always take care of you.
Looking around at the circumstances of our World today, it is a sad situation. People are filled with selfish desires that they can not overcome such as love for money and materialism. The divorce rate is high, family breakdown is the norm, and human sexuality is mis-portrayed everywhere we look. Even the Earth itself is being misused as we have polluted our planet so much that the hole in the ozone layer is growing and as we continually misuse our bountiful resources, parents and children across the world are starving to death. This is the reality of the world that we are living in. The question is -- why?
This occurred because we did not realize the plan God has given us for our lives. This plan is first found in Genesis 1:28. After creating the world and seeing that it was good, God created the last part of creation, humans. He created them in His own image and blessed them. Genesis 1:28, or the “three great blessings” as I will refer to them, are the very first words God speaks to man. And not only does God say them once, but he repeats them 12 times just in the book of Genesis.
God revealed our purpose in life to us through providing directions to live by. His words can be looked at as blessings since fulfilling His direction is our way of returning gratitude to Him. He commands us to be fruitful, to multiply, and to have dominion over creation. However, we have overlooked this and oftentimes failed to live out the three great blessings correctly. Let’s take a closer look at the meaning behind each blessing.
The first two words that God said to man were: “Be fruitful”. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word fruitful is defined as: “abundantly productive.” God created man in His image and thus in saying His first words to His children “Be fruitful”, he wanted them to grow in character, spirit, and heart; to become “abundantly productive”. He wanted His children to become like Him; “Be perfect therefore as your Father in heaven is perfect” (NIV, Matt 5:48). Therefore, being fruitful can be looked at as the stage before marriage. It is the time to build one’s own personal relationship with God, grow and be strengthened in Him, becoming a person of integrity.
According to the Divine Principle, being fruitful means to be “mature and ready to bear fruit” which is done through “the perfection of individual character”. We can see this is true when looking at a tree. In Matthew 7:17 it reads: “Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit” (AKJV, Matt 7:17). God’s words must have been a symbolism referring the trees to people. How could a tree be corrupt or evil? Just as an immature tree brings forth bad fruit and a mature, healthy tree bears good fruit it is the same with man.
Once we are able to unite our mind and body with God at the center we can fully become temples of God: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (KJV, 1 Corinthians 3:16). “Such was God’s intention: be fruitful by uniting with Him” (Kim, 17). And when one has reached this state of a trusting relationship with God and a mindset of living for the sake of another, not just for oneself, one is ready for the second great blessing from God: “Multiply”.
The second thing God had asked of Adam and Eve was to “multiply”. God wanted Adam and Eve to become one in holy matrimony centered upon Him and to have a beautiful family which would become the school of love. However, the word “multiply” does not simply refer to: have physical children. It means to pass the love of God on to ones descendants. And since we humans have fallen and our children are not born sinless, it is safe to say that we should multiply spiritual children as well. By this I mean, multiplying the body of Christ here on Earth through evangelism which Jesus revealed to us later in the New Testament.
Jeremiah 23:3 states: "I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number.” So, once we are fruitful beings we are ready to increase in number. However, the first blessing “be fruitful” has not yet been realized. Man has not become perfect (Matt 5:48) and he has not become God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16). Because of the Fall, being unable to control one’s selfish desires, the result is sinful families.
Husbands and wives who come together without God at the center cannot fully establish the ideal families God had in mind. However God’s original intentions for multiplication were the following: “Through their love, then, children would be born and the parents would experience their own creation of another being who would reflect and amplify their own nature. [and God’s] Such a family would serve as a foothold for God’s sovereignty in the physical world and a fountainhead of love for each member of the family” (Kim, 19). This was God’s hope. There are those who choose to get married and never have children.
However, “The realization of the ideal of creation does not end merely by men and women getting married and uniting through love. After this, they must experience having sons and daughters… If there is only a husband and wife, there will be today, but no tomorrow. If there is no tomorrow, everything comes to have no meaning” (“Blessing and Ideal Family, 4). We know that this is true because just as God created us in His image, He gave us the gift to create children in our image through multiplication. How much joy it must bring to God to see how unique and different each one of his children are as different manifestation of Himself. Therefore through multiplication, husband and wife are to unite with each other by having children with God at the center of the family.
Lastly, after God has asked us to work on ourselves and our family, He asks us to take care of the things around us. God asked Adam and Eve to have dominion over all of creation. As all of creation is His gift to us, He wants us to take great care of it. Therefore although “dominion” might seem like a heavy word, God simply wants us to take care of our environment-- the earth, the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, and every living thing that moves on the earth -- which in return bring joy to us. He created these things so carefully and with so much love, that our duty and promise to Him is to take care of it.
According to Bergant writer of the U.S. Catholic, “We are truly children of the universe made of the same stuff as the mountains and the rain, the sand, and the stars.” She refers to the creation story in Genesis 2:7 in which God created man out of clay from the ground. We were created in God’s image and “as images they are meant to carry out God’s rule on earth. As images they are meant to subdue and have dominion in the way God would, in a way that enhances rather than destroys the earth… The earth is now in our keeping. We must take up this responsibility as agents of God. It is an awesome role that we play in the world” (Bergant). Being created in the image of God comes with responsibilities, like taking care of the Earth He has given us.
Ritenbaugh a writer of Bible Commentaries also brings up the second creation story found in Genesis 2. He explains how the lighter feeling words “tend” and “keep it” are used instead of “have dominion” and “subdue it”. To “tend” the garden means to “work or serve” which can also be defined as tilling or cultivating land and to “keep” means to “exercise great care over” it. He asks for man to watch over the garden, “A caretaker maintains and protects his charge so that he can return it to its owner in as good or better condition than when he received it” (Ritenbaugh). “Whether we read the creation story in Genesis, the nature hymns in the Psalms, or the majestic poetry of the theophany in Job, we are taught that behind and throughout every thing visible man can sense the presence of a divine reality. If this be true, the universe reflects the personality of God… the universe becomes God’s body” (Kim, 3). As we can see, taking care of our environment is our duty and by doing it right we will not only fulfill the third blessing but bring joy to God through it. As we are the body of God, so is the nature around us. Therefore, “Having dominion” simply means to unite with and take care of our environment.
I hope that you have come to see God’s words in Genesis 1:28 in a new light. The words God first spoke to man are so precious and so deep. The three great blessings; “be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion”, come to mean a lot in our own lives as we strive to understand and achieve them. Of course God has spoken through many prophets over time in the Old Testament and through His Son Jesus Christ in the New Testament giving us directions, a clear way of life. But this is only because humanity is fallen. God had to send His Son to us spreading the message of loving ones enemies because we have crossed the line and walked away from God’s first words, thus falling.
By not fulfilling the first blessing of being fruitful through building a trusting relationship with God and making Him the center of my life, we come to be self-centered and long for things like power, money, and fame. If two people like this come together, their relationship will be without God. Instead of having fully prepared themselves for each other, they will not be ready to always think of the other first and selfish desires will take over.
This leads to things such as sexual immorality, divorce, and family breakdown. And if we have not fulfilled the first two blessings of being fruitful and multiplying through a beautiful God-centered family, then how would we even be able to think of taking care of the nature around us? If we can not even work on ourselves, or our relationships with the people around us, I don’t think we would even think about taking care of Creation. By not having dominion over creation, we have selfishly polluted the planet and misused our resources taking more for me and less for you. As one can see, the three blessings are all connected.
Instead, God intended us to be fruitful, to fruitfully multiply, and fruitfully have dominion. He wanted us to use our time of singleness to grow in our relationship with Him, to unite with Him, and become temples of God preparing our hearts and ourselves for that significant other God prepared for us. If two people that have built a trusting relationship with God and really made effort to work on themselves (their character), come together, they will be able to properly unite with each other. With God at the center, the couple will be able to overcome temptation together because they will be able to think of the other before themselves and this will lead to the multiplication of a beautiful God centered family. When a family is united with God at its center, they will naturally want to take care of the things God has provided them with. Together they will be able to tend and take care of the environment around.
Therefore, no matter where you may be at in your life, you can always take one step at a time and: “Be fruitful” by growing in your relationship with Him (uniting with Him); “Multiplying” by creating a beautiful family (uniting with others); and having “Dominion” over all creation by taking care of it (uniting with creation). God’s words in Genesis 1:28 have too often been overlooked and that is why we are living in the World today that is in the condition we humans have made it but it is also up to us to follow God’s word and change it.
Bergant, Diane. “The Bible tells me so.” U.S. Catholic. April 2008, Vol. 73 Issue 4, p16-17, 2p. Web- EBSCO Host.
Biblegateway.com. 1995-2009. Zondervan Corporation. Web. "fruitful." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 4 May 2009. Web.
Kim, Young Oon. Unification Theology and Christian Thought. New York: Golden Gate Publishing Co., 1975.
Moon, Sun Myung. Blessing and Ideal Family. New York: HSA Publications, 1993.
Moon, Sun Myung. Exposition of the Divine Principle. New York: H.S.A.- U.W.C., 1996.
Ritenbaugh, John W. BibleTools -Commentaries. Church of the Great God. 5 May 2009. Web.