Is Hunting Biblical? – Excerpt from OutdoorsPastor.com

Photo Credit – Steiner Optics

Have you ever had someone question whether or not God would approve of hunting? Often times, people who question the morality of hunting point to the fact that the animals are innocent or that killing an animal somehow violates the commandment, “Thou shalt not murder” (almost always quoted in the King James translation by those who use it as the reason why hunting is not okay). But does hunting go against biblical commands?

First of all, the biblical prohibition against killing is more specifically translated “You shall not murder” and subsequent commands against murder are based on the fact that mankind bears the image of God (Genesis 9:6; Exodus 21:12), thus giving the reason why it is not okay to kill other people. But does hunting animals fall into the same camp as murdering humans?

To answer this question, we first need to look at the creation account in Genesis 1.

God had created everything except for mankind. All of the plants, fish, birds, and mammals had been created. God came to the last of his creative acts, the creation of the first man and woman, and he said this:

[shareable cite=”Genesis 1:26″]“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”[/shareable]

Within this verse we see two very important responsibilities that God gave to mankind: bearing his image and having dominion over the earth.

To continue reading, click on this link to go to my other site, OutdoorsPastor.com