In today's episode we are joined by Professor Sandra Richter. Professor Richter is passionate about serving God and helping people know him and ourselves through the Bible. She is also a fellow imager who cares deeply about the environment for which we were/are called to steward. In this most enjoyable and enlightening interview Professor Richter points us back to a foundational reality of our human identity as imagers and calls us to action. She brings much of her reflections, insights and research from her most recent book: Stewards of Eden, What Scripture Says About the Environment and Why it Matters. As we come to see in our discussion, our care of the creation/environment is still a relevant vocation for all imagers today and our response to this call has a lot more to do with our love for neighbor than we think.

"Ultimately, the image of God is Jesus Christ. People are first created and later renewed according to that image. Image involves connection and reflection. Creation in God's image entails a special connection with God and an intended reflection of God...This connection with God is the basis of human dignity. The reflection of God is the beauty of human destiny. All of humanity participates in human dignity. All of humanity is offered human destiny...Christ and humanity, connection and reflection, dignity and destiny - these lie at the heart of what God's image is all about." - John F. Kilner

Today on the podcast we are going to continue laying the foundation for our understanding of the Bible’s most fundamental claim about human identity as people being made in the image of God. This is really the bedrock and theme of all our conversations on this podcast and so today we are joined with John Kilner to help us grasp the significance of this concept especially in terms of human dignity and destiny.

In this first episode we get acquainted with the Biblical concept of being made in the image of God from the book of Genesis chapter 1. This idea of being made in the image of God is central to all future conversations about human identity and purpose here on the podcast so we are going to spend a couple of weeks expanding our understanding of this most fundamental and foundational idea about human identity from the Bible. To get us started in the right direction we are joined by Prof. J. Richard Middleton. Professor Middleton is the author of the book The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1. We are super thankful for his willingness to share many years of careful reflection and research on the image of God idea in the Bible and also its understanding in the ancient world of the Bible.