Bible Verses for What the Bible Says About Culture Making

Culture making is the human calling to cultivate God's world and bring forth the goodness latent within it. This vocation begins on the very first page of Scripture. In Genesis 1:28 God blessed humanity and said, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion." This is often called the creation mandate: people made in God's image are to fill the world not merely with more people but with families, work, art, and ordered communities. Genesis 2:15 narrows the focus: God placed the man in the garden "to work it and keep it," giving him both productive labor and faithful stewardship from the start. The Bible dignifies skilled, creative work as a gift of God's Spirit. In Exodus 31:3 the Lord says of the craftsman Bezalel, "I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship," so that the tabernacle's beauty was itself Spirit-empowered culture making. Psalm 8:6 marvels that God has given humanity dominion over the works of his hands, placing all things under our feet. Far from being unspiritual, the making of beautiful, useful, ordered things reflects the Creator whose image we bear. After the fall, culture making is meant to bless even a broken world. Jeremiah 29:7 instructed the exiles to "seek the welfare of the city" where they lived, for in its flourishing they would flourish. The New Testament adds motive and dignity: "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" (Colossians 3:23), and Ephesians 2:10 declares that we are "his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works." Christian culture making is therefore worship in overalls: cultivating, creating, and stewarding the world for the glory of God and the good of neighbor.