Should I Care about Animals?

In the interest of disclosure, I am not what you might call an "animal person." I hunt. I eat meat. I don't recall my heart ever melting over a cute cat or dog. Personally, I am not in favor of house-pets. And I surely don't refer to our dogs as "furbabies."

So I am intrigued by the last words of God's closing speech to Jonah. "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (NAS). God is using the idea of animal suffering to rouse Jonah so that Jonah's heart might reflect God's compassion. If the city had been destroyed the animals would have died too. The destruction of animals should trouble Jonah.

If the idea of "much livestock" being needlessly destroyed doesn't trouble us then we need to acquire a more robust theology of animals. Why do animals matter? What should we think about them? How should we treat them? And how can they lead us to God? A theology of animals is ultimately not about animals. It is about God; his greatness, his creativity, his love for what he has made, his pity toward the needy, and his salvation for sinners in Jesus Christ.