Christians should take Good Care of their Animals.

“A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.” Proverbs 12:10 N.I.V

There are some Christians who justify mistreatment of animals on the basis that God made them for human use and they are therefore entitled to use them in any way they please. They think that animals are not deserving of any moral consideration because “they have no souls or reasoning capacity”. However in Genesis 1:26 the authority given by God should be taken as that of a good steward and not a cruel task master  and user with no consideration at all for the pain and suffering of animals. God did not make animals for man. He created them “because he saw that it was good”. God cared enough to save the animals in Noah’s Ark and to make a covenant declaring “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” (Genesis 9:16)   Anybody who has lived with or studied an animal knows that they are intelligent and many go through similar emotions as human beings. Many pets are very loving and can aid healing of sick children, encourage the lonely, act as guides and guards for the disabled, and help in many other ways. As for animals having souls, we cannot know for sure because the Bible does not explicitly tell us. What the Bible does have is several references to animals in heaven including: creatures in heaven praising God (Revelation 5:13), and reference to a white horse in heaven (Revelation 19:11-14).

In Proverbs 12:10 N.I.V we are advised “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal…” Exodus 23:12 also includes the consideration that domestic animals’ need to rest, “Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest”,  while Deuteronomy 25:4 says “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain

Let us then be good stewards and look after the animals, like we are doing it for God.

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The question is not, "Can they reason?" nor, "Can they talk?" but rather, "Can they suffer?"
~Jeremy Bentham

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