God not only created persons, but persons of "worth." Regrettably, the Genesis account of humanity’s beginning has frequently been sensationalized, either by recurring debates as to the nature of the literature or gnat-straining arguments over sequences, that the matter of "worth" has escaped the hearing of a people who desperately need to hear it. Whatever else the high occurence of suicide in this country suggests to us, the matters of low self-esteem and a consciousness of worthlessness must certainly be taken into account. Genesis is but the first affirmation that God not only created persons, but persons of worth.
In Matthew 6:26, Jesus said, "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow or reaped or gather in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Although his primary intent was to direct his hearers beyond an anxiety-ridden life, the affirmation of worth is again underscored. "Are you not worth more than they?" The inference is "Yes," but how much more and why?
Years ago a little publication called The Electric Experimenter calculated what the average person weighing 150 pounds was worth. When the raw components were considered, it was determined that the average person was composed of 3,500 feet of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen; enough fats to make a candle weighing fifteen pounds; enough carbon to make 9,360 lead pencils; fifty-four ounces of phosphorus to make 800,000 matches; enough sugar to make six little sugar cubes; enough iron to make a ten-penny nail; enough lime to mark off the batter’s box on a baseball diamond; twenty spoonfulls of salt; and various other chemicals and water which collectively totaled $8.50. In consideration of current inflationary costs, this means that a 150 pound person is presently valued at almost fifteen dollars. Jesus said, "Are you not worth more than they?" How much? From time to time it is remarked that "so-and-so is worth a million dollars," or a certain athlete is worth twelve million. This is not the kind of worth we are concerned with here.
The Bible tells us that each child of God is a creature of unutterable worth. 1. We were created, not a little lower than the angels, but "a little less than God." Such a birthright overwhelms us with magnificent humility even as it elevates us to an honored estate; 2. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son ..." We are worthy of the Son of God dying for us! What higher value can be placed on anything in the entire universe that the Son of God should lay down his life in our behalf?; 3. God has no unwanted children. He makes no mistakes and does not traffic in accidents. It is his cattle on a thousand hills and he knows his sheep by name.
The first man was called Adam. The first woman was called Eve. Our scripture tells us that God creates persons and they are called "precious;" creatures of worth.
Moreover, it also follows that we are a people capable of assuming moral responsibility. How much moral responsibility have we assumed when 1. our natural resources are being depleted at an alarming rate, 2. food surpluses are being destroyed while millions are starving, 3. the crime rate continues to soar and we already have more criminals than we have places to put them, 4. economically, our two main words are still "profit" and "me." And there is another moral question which can no longer be put on the back burner. The question of what moral responsibility do we exercise related to nuclear weapons? It is no longer a question of "what if?" but of "what do we do now?" The hard facts are sobering:
a. a twenty-megaton bomb contains the equivalent of twenty million tons of TNT, or five times the total energy of all the bombs dropped during World War II. By comparison, the Hiroshima bomb produced 13,000 tons of energy.
b. a single such bomb would totally destroy every building and vaporize every person for a radius of six miles. Within twenty miles, persons would be killed instantly and every imaginable object would speed through the air at 100 miles per hour. Over-pressure would burn and demolish everything.
c. persons up to 26 miles away would become instant flaming torches.
d. fire storms would be created for 3,000 square miles.
e. fall-out shelters would have the oxygen sucked from them, lethal fall-out would extend for thousands of square miles and radio-activity would linger for months or years.
That is one twenty-megaton bomb. This country presently has enough nuclear weapons to overkill every Russian forty times. Russia has the capacity to overkill every American twenty times. Again, "God had in wisdom created a people capable of assuming a moral responsibility." We no longer have the luxury of acting irresponsibly. A covenant binds both parties to certain obligations.