# 17 Bible Verses About Life on Earth Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-life-on-earth/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2025-06-12 Updated: 2026-10-13 The Bible treats life on earth as a gift and a task from God, short and often hard, and lived by his people as strangers who belong to a better country. Hebrews 11:13 calls them "foreigners and strangers on earth," Genesis 1:28 gives the task, Genesis 3:19 the hardship after the fall, and Psalm 90:12 and James 4:14 the brevity. John 16:33 promises trouble "in this world," Philippians 3:20 places a Christian's citizenship in heaven, and Revelation 21:1 looks to "a new heaven and a new earth." The Bible does not tell believers to withdraw: Jeremiah 29 tells exiles in Babylon to build houses and seek the peace of the city, and in John 17:15 Jesus asks the Father not to take his disciples out of the world. ## Made from the earth and set over it ### Genesis 1:27 > "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." **Reflection:** Mankind is made in God's image on the sixth day, male and female together. The verse before it states the purpose in the same sentence as the image: "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky" (Genesis 1:26). When the day ends, God sees all that he had made, "and it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). ### Genesis 1:28 > "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'" **Reflection:** God's blessing on the man and woman comes with work attached: filling the earth, subduing it, and ruling over every living creature. The next verse gives them "every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth" and every fruit tree for food. ### Genesis 3:19 > "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." **Reflection:** God speaks these words to Adam after he eats from the forbidden tree. The ground is cursed "because of you," and food will come "through painful toil" for "all the days of your life" (Genesis 3:17). The sentence ends where the man began, since Genesis 2:7 says God formed him "from the dust of the ground." Psalm 90:3 repeats the sentence as God's word to all people: "Return to dust, you mortals." ## How short and how ordered a life on earth is ### Psalm 90:12 > "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." **Reflection:** Psalm 90 is headed "A prayer of Moses the man of God," and it sets human life beside God, who is God "from everlasting to everlasting" (verse 2). Verse 10 gives the span: "Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures," and they "quickly pass." Verse 12 is the request addressed to God: to count the days in order to gain wisdom. ### James 4:14 > "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." **Reflection:** James addresses people who say they will go to a city, "spend a year there, carry on business and make money" (verse 13). His correction concerns how they speak of their plans: "Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that'" (verse 15). The mist describes a life whose owner cannot see its next day. ### Ecclesiastes 3:1 > "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." **Reflection:** The Teacher follows this line with a list of paired opposites, from "a time to be born and a time to die" to "a time for war and a time for peace." A few verses later he says God "has also set eternity in the human heart" (verse 11), and that there is nothing better for people "than to be happy and to do good while they live" (verse 12). "Under the heavens" places every item on the list within life on earth. ## Trouble in this world ### John 16:33 > "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." **Reflection:** Jesus says this to his disciples at the end of the talk that begins at the supper in John 13; John 18 opens with him crossing the Kidron Valley to the garden where he is arrested. The verse before it predicts that they will scatter and leave him alone. Trouble "in this world" is stated as a fact, and the peace he offers is found "in me," alongside the claim "I have overcome the world." ### 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 > "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." **Reflection:** Paul writes this after describing what his work has cost: "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed" and "persecuted, but not abandoned" (verses 8-9). The verse before it says "outwardly we are wasting away," and the next sentence calls the body "the earthly tent we live in," set against "an eternal house in heaven" (2 Corinthians 5:1). "Light and momentary" is his measure of troubles that included persecution. ### Matthew 6:33 > "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." **Reflection:** "All these things" are food, drink and clothing, the subjects of the worry Jesus forbids in verses 25-32. He points to the birds and the wild flowers, which God feeds and clothes, and says "your heavenly Father knows that you need them." The next verse keeps daily life in view: "Each day has enough trouble of its own." ## Living as strangers on earth ### Jeremiah 29:11 > "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" **Reflection:** Jeremiah sent this promise in a letter to the people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile in Babylon (verse 1), and it comes with a time: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you" (verse 10). Before the promise, the letter tells them to build houses, plant gardens, marry, and "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile" (verse 7). The future of verse 11 is a return home (verse 14), and until then the exiles are told to settle where they are. ### Hebrews 11:13 > "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth." **Reflection:** The verses before it name Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Sarah, and say Abraham lived in the promised land "like a stranger in a foreign country" (verse 9). They died without receiving what was promised, and the writer reads their admission as a sign that "they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one" (verse 16). First Peter uses the same terms for its readers, urging them "as foreigners and exiles" to live good lives among their neighbours (1 Peter 2:11-12). ### John 17:15 > "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." **Reflection:** Jesus prays this for his disciples, addressing the Father, shortly before his arrest. He asks that they stay in the world and be protected there, though "they are not of the world any more than I am of the world" (verse 14). Verse 18 adds: "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." ### Philippians 3:20-21 > "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." **Reflection:** Paul sets this against people whose "mind is set on earthly things" (verse 19). Philippi was "a Roman colony" (Acts 16:12), and Paul tells its church that their citizenship is in heaven, from where they await Jesus. The hope he names is bodily: Christ "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." ## What lasts and what passes away ### Matthew 6:19-20 > "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." **Reflection:** Jesus contrasts treasure on earth, which moths, vermin and thieves can reach, with treasure in heaven, which they cannot. The next verse gives his reason: "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Earlier in the same chapter he teaches his disciples to pray "your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). ### Colossians 3:1-2 > "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things." **Reflection:** Paul grounds the command in what has already happened to the Colossians: they have been raised with Christ, and "your life is now hidden with Christ in God" (verse 3). Verse 5 says what belongs to the "earthly nature" they are to put to death: "sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." ### 1 John 2:17 > "The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever." **Reflection:** John has just told his readers not to love the world, and he says what he means by it: "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" (verse 16). Verse 17 sets desires that pass away against a person who does the will of God and "lives forever." ### Revelation 21:1 > "Then I saw 'a new heaven and a new earth,' for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea." **Reflection:** John's vision borrows Isaiah 65:17, "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth." It continues with the new Jerusalem "coming down out of heaven from God" and a voice announcing, "God's dwelling place is now among the people" (verse 3). Verse 4 lists what will be gone: death, mourning, crying and pain. --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). You may quote it and link to it. 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