Genesis 1:26b

Dominion.

I’m not sure that there is anything that I am more uncomfortable with in the Bible than the concepts of “dominion” and “authority”. When they are in the hands of God, absolutely fine. When I am told that I have dominion and I have authority my first thought is, “Well, that’s one heck of a mistake. I don’t want it and I wouldn’t be any good at it even if I had it. I can’t be trusted one bit.

And yet God does precisely this. “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” A few verses later God declares that we are given every plant for food, so that places under our dominion every living thing upon the earth. Interestingly this doesn’t include the earth itself. Later He declares that must be subdued, but we will get into that later. At this rate, in about four diary entries, but let’s get started with the difficulties of dominion.

Dominion is that Hebrew word “rada”, which means “to rule, dominate, to tread down”. Interestingly it also means, “to scrape out” as in its usage in the story of Samson who found the dead lion that had become a beehive. He “rada”ed out the honey from the lion’s corpse. He took it from one place to where it suited him. It can also mean “to tread as in a winepress”. Ruling as a master over a servant means essentially that we can take all living things and make them work or provide for us.

It’s the ruling thing that is so difficult for me to accept. Why? As I said above, because I’m pretty sure I’d suck at it. But why is that such a struggle to accept? For the same reason I fear having authority. If I mess that up, then the consequences will be massive. I am not one who always works for the “Shalom” of things, situations, or people. I know the horrible tendencies that I have within me as a possibility. This means that all of my choices are bigger than myself. There are more victims and innocent bystanders that are potentially affected even if I make the best choice for the best reasons and it fails. I don’t want that on my conscience.

Back in the day there was just a bar mitzvah for thirteen year old boys. The bat mitzvah for girls is a wholly modern invention, as most rabbis would tell you. I once heard a rabbi speak on this and he declared that there is no need for girls to have anything like a bar mitzvah. Most girls are already primed to take responsibility. We can see this when a baby comes into a woman’s life. They may have doubts about their abilities but they willingly take that baby, and the responsibility for it’s life, health, and well-being without flinching. Men, on the other hand, have a slightly more complicated response. I have known men who adapt quickly and well to fatherhood. There are others who want nothing to do with the baby, or even get jealous of the baby.

If a man is given the opportunity to not take responsibility, to not lead, or to abdicate, to live his life out in relative pleasure in his mother’s basement, then he will. He must be challenged to lead, given the role of leadership, handed the responsibility and commanded to make something of it. He needs a moment where he crosses from childhood into manhood, or he will happily remain in childhood forever. This is the bar mitzvah. Pick up the weight of manhood and see how far you can carry it.

In order to be a good man or woman, in order to be a good king or queen, in order to be a good father or mother, one has to have and take the authority to risk failure. To be human, to have been given the authority, the dominion over the Earth was not because God believed us to be perfectly capable. It was given to us as a forge for our bodies and souls. Work was in the Garden, all a part of the plan. The physical work and the spiritual work were all a part of the plan.

In short, we are not worthy of Dominion in and of ourselves. When a teenager first gets behind the wheel they are not worthy of driving the vehicle. They will make mistakes and they may even be harmful or tragic mistakes; harmful to the vehicle or harmful to themselves.

It is my contention that God gave us Dominion to cause us to grow, to mature, to force the issue within our bodies and our souls. We see our mistakes, see our helplessness and are forced to make a choice. We acquiesce, or we act. And in that process we grow towards “worthiness” of that title of Dominion by becoming more like Him, the True King who has True Dominion over all the Universe, not just the Earth.