God’s Word for You

Genesis 1:29-30 Every green plant for food

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, August 12, 2026

29 Then God said, “See, I give you every plant that bears seed on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. It will be your food. 30 And to all the animals of the earth, from all the birds of the sky to all the creatures that crawl on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

We need to be careful about how we talk about passages like this one. The Bible is not a source book for new dietary fads. Just because Adam and Eve and their descendants only ate vegetation does not mean that a vegetarian or vegan diet is demanded or even suggested by God for us. But in the very beginning, there was salad and fruit.

Perhaps the most remarkable things about this blessing is that it did require some effort for the man and the woman. They did some work: to “work the ground” (Genesis 2:5) means tilling or plowing (or sowing by hand) to plant the seeds of their favorite crops, such as wheat to make flour and bread. Their work was not difficult; it was joyful. What now takes up so much of our days is the preparation of food for our families, and then cleaning up afterwards. Some families enter into a good routine about this that works well for them.

Adam and Eve surely enjoyed these blessings of God. I don’t know whether they set up a regular pattern in their diet, such as a “New Fruit Friday” or an “Exotic Seed Sunday.” But they surely worked for their food. They gathered it with joy and contentment. As Professor Koehler teaches: “God gives us our daily bread, but we must work for it. Not even in the Garden of Eden was man to spend his days in idleness, but he was to work it and take care of the Garden (Genesis 2:15). After the fall into sin, work became toilsome labor (Genesis 3:19); and to this day it is the will of God that ‘if any would not work, neither should he eat’ (2 Thessalonians 3:10).”

Perhaps one way that we might reflect on this is in the blessing of peace. God commanded the man and his wife to look after the world, to bend it to their good use but to preserve it at the same time. Vineyards, fields, and orchards need peace to thrive. God chooses to provide for us through mediation, the means of growing food (and now, of providing meat and eggs and such things). He consoles us: “The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace” (Psalm 37:11). And in the same Psalm, David sings: “Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture” (Psalm 37:3). And Luther writes: “Because this cannot happen where there is no peace, God is compelled, as Creator, preserving his own creatures… to institute and preserve government and to commit to it the sword and the laws” (LW 13:45, on Psalm 82:1).

This passage shows us our sins by exposing the way we sometimes waste what God gives, or do not receive his good gifts with thanks. Also, we should remember that this world belongs to God our Creator, and not to us. It is only ours to look after, and we can’t claim it as our own. One Lutheran author concluded: “The ungodly claim for themselves authority over ever so much of the earth based on what God said, ‘Subdue the earth,’… as if that authority were clearly unrestricted and granted in such a way that God would retain no rights for himself over it but would possess authority only in heaven.”

Now, perhaps on this day your private guilt is not at all about the abuse of God’s creation, but about something else. Nevertheless, we hear the gospel in these verses because God provides for mankind, and even though we live in a world corrupted by sin, and we ourselves are sinful, God still provides. God still loves. Jesus our Savior invites us to come to him.

We come before God unworthy and sinful, stained and guilty, stinking to God like a child who has just come into the kitchen from the hog barn, but he smiles upon us—why? For Jesus’ sake. So we poor sinners take refuge in God’s mercy. We believe that God is gracious and merciful through Christ. He is willing to show compassion. His mercy endures forever.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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