And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.” Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage. – Joshua 15:16-17

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 6, 2015): Joshua 15

Last week, President Obama urged the world to take climate change seriously. He commented about his recent visit to Alaska where the Glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate, where the sea level is rising drowning towns out of existence and the permafrost thaws and the tundra burns. In his words, something must be done. What we do today will have a profound effect on the way the world looks in the future. “One of the enemies we will be fighting at this conference (on climate change) is cynicism. The notion we can't do anything about climate change,” Obama said. But not only can we do something, we must if the world is going to be able stabilize politically in the future - because climate change is a destabilizing force that will bring with it refugees, war, famine and a fight in many parts of the world to simply survive.

Christians have traditionally been slow to hear the clarion call with regard to climate change. Recently one Christian scientist argued that climate change was essential, that carbon release had to be maintained in order to produce a healthy ecosystem. The argument is that the amount of carbon available in the atmosphere was so low that it was a threat to all plant life on the planet. That plants need carbon dioxide to survive and before the advent of man and the release of the carbon that had been captured and buried with our fossil fuels, the planet seemed to be on a downward spiral that would eventually reach a tipping point and all of the plant life on earth would die. And man does exist without the plants that maintain and clean our atmosphere. The result is that we should be thanking ourselves for the salvation of the planet, for the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that has steered us away from that low carbon tipping point.

So who exactly is telling us the truth? Unfortunately the answer is probably both. It is the realization that there is a very narrow window in which life on this planet can survive. If the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere gets too low, the plants die and so do we. If the carbon dioxide gets too high, the plants thrive, but there is less room for us to live and breathe. But there is also a chain reaction that is set in place for a rampant greenhouse effect to continue out of control – and that will kill everything. And we know this for sure because we have an example of our future possibility lying just next door. The hottest planet in the Solar System is not Mercury which circles closest to the sun – it Venus which has suffered its own greenhouse catastrophe. Venus is the perfect example of what happens when the Greenhouse effect runs out of control – the atmosphere gets hotter and hotter and life simply cannot exist. Fourteen of the hottest years on record have occurred since the year 2000 – and 2015 is set to be the hottest year yet. Obama is right, the climate change discussion is about the world in which we will force our children to live. The only question is whether anyone is listening to the words of a President that is on his way out of the presidency.

The true mark of a leader is never found in what he does and the power that he controls – it is always measured by the way that he inspires others to act. The story of the taking of Canaan reveals an image of Caleb as a powerful force of a man. He is man of faith and he trusts God with every decision. But here we also find that he is a great leader. He has the ability to inspire others to do great thing – and Othniel is one of them. Caleb inspires Othniel to go ahead and capture one of the cities within Judah’s area of responsibility. But the story of Othniel does not end with the taking of one city. After the deaths of Joshua and Caleb, the last of the Mosaic leaders, Othniel would become the first Judge of Israel – the first leader that God would raise up to lead Israel through a time of trouble. And Othniel was up to the task because he had learned under the teaching of Caleb – a leader who was not concerned with just doing the task himself, but concerned about inspiring others to be great leaders and to continue the task when his time was through.

My hope is that, even in the last days of his presidency, Obama proves to be a leader like Caleb. That he will lead others to continue on with the fight with regard to climate change even after the Obama presidency is finished.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joshua 16