Text Selected Texts
Focus Developing a Biblical World View
Introduction
This morning we are going to continue in our theme on “Foundational Studies” in which we will specifically look at “The Christian World-View.”
What is a Christian World View
and Why do Christians Need One?
“A world view is a set of presuppositions and beliefs that someone uses to interpret and form opinions about his humanity, purpose in life, duties in the world, responsibilities to family, interpretation of truth, social issues, etc. A Christian should view all these things, and more, guided by the light that is shed upon them by the Bible.
The Bible has much to say about the nature of man, the world, purpose, truth, morality, etc., and so does the world. More often than not, the secular world view is in conflict with the biblical one. For example: Where the world asserts that man evolved, the Bible says he was created and ultimately responsible to God. Where the world says that morals are relative, the Bible says they are absolute. Where the world says that there is no need of salvation and redemption, the Bible clearly states that all people are in need of deliverance from their sin. The contrast is obvious and profound. Both cannot be true.
The secular world exalts man to the apex of evolutionary development, the sovereign over all he dominates, though only another animal. God is relegated to the belief systems of the uneducated and superstitious. Such opposing views will clash.” http://www.carm.org/issues/worldview.htm
The Condition of Society
“The fruit of the secular world view can be seen in around us. As we observe society, it is evident that not all is well. Television has degenerated into a bordello of violence, soft-pornography, anti-family sit-coms, commercials that appeal to immediate gratification, and senseless children’s cartoons that are full of violence, occultism, and disobedience to parents. It often portrays pastors as psychotics, priests as pedophiles, and religious people as insecure, ignorant, and bigoted.
The News is extremely biased and when speaking in areas where religious and secular morals collide, it uniformly presents information with loaded words. Instead of "pro-life" we hear "anti-abortion rights." Instead of "conservative" it is "right wing fundamentalist." Other words are used such as "Bible thumpers," "censorship," "intolerance," "bigoted," etc.
"According to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, the average TV watcher sees 14,000 references to sex and the average child "watches 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence by the end of elementary school."
Illegitimacy is on the rise. In 1970 babies born out of wedlock were 10% of all births. In 1991, it was 30%. Rape is increasing as is violent crime, venereal disease, drug usage, and prison populations.
In many American schools the "Impressions" series is promoting the New Age and the occult. Some programs have students being taught that they alone are the ones who should decide if drug use is good or bad. Many school textbooks teach anti-family values, promote homosexuality, teach moral relativism, encourage sexual conduct, and, of course, instill evolution as a fact. In addition, they condemn the notion of a Christian God even being mentioned. Consider the following:
"When 10-year old Raymond Raines bowed his head and silently said grace over lunch in a St. Louis public school cafeteria, he was placed in detention for a week and told that he must eat in a room by himself if he continued to pray.
"When 30 Texas high school students gathered to pray at the flagpole before school one morning, the principal politely told them not only to leave, but to pray out of sight.
"In Illinois, a high school principal sent police to break up a similar prayer group. Two students were arrested."
Obviously, America (and the world) is in desperate need of the life changing gospel of Jesus.” http://www.carm.org/issues/worldview.htm
I do not want to leave anyone with the impression that this is a unique problem in our place in history. From the very beginning we have seen an assault on God’s Word and mankind doing what he has desired. Consider Judges 17:6, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
There is an assault on God’s Word, His Truth in our society today. We are seeing the fruits of Moral Relativism manifest themselves all around. We are told that there is not a Single Standard of truth
Quote: Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital "T." Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality - and the intellectual holding of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.
Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984), Address at the University of Notre Dame, April 1981
King David was posed with a question over three millennia ago, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalm 11:3 David did not pose a question to which he did not know the answer.
David realized that there were evil doer’s who hated God. But David also had the assurance that God would not and could not be moved or removed by those who rail against Him. David’s answer was that one must look to God and stand upon his Word, and then one would not be moved.
As we seek to develop a Christian or Biblical World View, it is necessary for us to pause and consider the Bible. What makes the Bible and it’s teachings unique?
I believe that the Bible, as originally written, is the “only” infallible, inerrant word of God. I believe that the Bible was written by holy men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The scriptures are the only infallible, inerrant, authoritative word of God; "and useful (profitable), for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." 2 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 1:21
World Views
As we begin in with this subject of “World View,” we must understand that every pocket of society and every person have a world view. That is we have a set of assumptions in which we believe to be true, and live life according to those assumptions.
Within the grand scheme of this world, there are many different World Views. In the Far East it may be one of the many Eastern Philosophies or Communism. Much of the Middle East is fueled by Islam. Africa is torn between Christianity, Islam, and tribal ritual. Western culture, for much of its existence, has followed the Judea/Christian World View until recent centuries when the Age of Enlightenment brought about a new World View, Naturalism.
In this section we will primarily focus on the Western Society, being this is where we live, teach, and minister. For Christian in the Western Culture, we must come to a place where we embrace a solid Biblical World View, for to fail to do so will reap and has reaped disastrous events. The Christian educator “cannot rely on others to develop Biblical and Christian world view for them,” (Pattern of Truth), they must be disciplined and do the work for themselves.
Biblical World View - Where Did We Come From? Genesis 1 & 2
In order for a World View to be Christian, it must encompass and answer the following Questions: “Where did we come from?” “What went wrong?” And “How do we fix it?”
In Western Society, the debate has raged since Darwin’s rise of evolutionary theory, over the origin of mankind. The disturbing though to me is that for the most part, the church had remained silent on the debate until more recent history. Any world view must answer the question of where mankind came from. The easy answer for us is obvious, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)
I find it amazing that for the most part, people for millenniums had acknowledged a Creator, though the identity of who this creator was may have differed greatly. It has not been until the last 150 years or so that an alternative argument for creation has arisen. The following excerpt helps to bring clarity to the debate:
A sound explanation may exist for the explosive birth of our Universe, but if it does, science cannot find out what it is. The scientist’s pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all the theologians. They have always accepted the word of the Bible, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” To which St. Augustine added, “Who can understand the mystery or explain it to others?” The development is unexpected because science has had such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time... Now we would like to pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to further progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” (Biblical Illustrations).
It is interesting that, for the most part, evolutionist scientists have accepted without a shred of evidence the argument of evolution, until recently, when many acclaimed scientists are beginning to acknowledge that mankind had a definite beginning, as mankind seems to have suddenly shown up on the seen without explanation. Chuck Colson states that “science today has uncovered dramatic new evidence that the universe did have an ultimate origin, that it began at a finite time in the past - just as the Bible teaches.” (How Now Shall We Live)?
I also find it interesting that the theological study of Apologetics; we find two arguments, the cosmological argument and the teleological argument, which argue design and intellect for created matter. In short, there is design in all creation, and if there is design, then there must be an intelligent source for that design, a creator.
Now, I make this point on Apologetics, because these are arguments which theologians have argued long and hard, and now science, because of the implication from general relativity theory, the first an second laws of thermodynamics are all pointing to the fact that there had to have been something external to the universe in order for it to have come into existence.
All the evidence is pointing to the fact that there was a definite point in time in which mankind came into being and that this was not a random act of evolution, rather, a well thought out plan by an intelligent being.
At this point, we must understand that because we have been “fearfully and wonderfully made,” (Psalm 139:14), mankind has purpose. Many of the problems in which we are witnessing with the teen through twenties age group is the lack of “sense of purpose.”
Many who accept the theory of evolution believe the lies that “because we are random acts of nature, accidents, why bother?” Many of our social ills have come from a generation of young people who have bought into the lie that life has no purpose, so we minus will live it up, and enjoy it, for in the end, what does it really matter.
The Christian understands, as King David, that we are not only fearfully and wonderfully made, but we also have purpose, note David’s next verse in this wonderful psalm; “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Ps 139:16). Mankind has purpose, and his purpose can only be found in a relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Fifteen years of youth ministry has taught me those teenagers who have a sense of purpose, have lived extraordinary lives. Teenagers who have not had a sense of purpose have settled for whatever has come along, generally sinking to the lowest common denominator. In almost every case in which I witnessed came through an understanding that they were created with design and purpose.
Biblical World View - What Went Wrong?
We have all heard the question asked, “If God is a God of love, then why does He allow all of these bad things to happen?” This became a very popular question on the heels of 9-11. After the terrorist attacks on our country, people wanted to know why God would allow such things to happen.
Yet, the accusations do not end with events such as 9-11. “Why does God allow children to suffer?” This was a question asked to me by a good friend’s father after she had an accident and slipped into a comma. Mike, “why did God allow this to happen?” It is also asked when we witness children who are starving world-wide, or to children who are abused, or when people are innocently murdered. The question to be answered is simple, “What went wrong?”
After all, Christians speak of a God who created mankind, who created the perfect utopia, what went wrong, why is there so many bad things happening in the world today? In the movie Rocky III, Rocky asks his wife Adrian, “How did everything that was so good get so bad?” This is exactly what we must answer now.
The Biblical World View again turns to the Bible for the answer to this question. Genesis 1 relates the story of creation. As we come to Genesis 2, we specifically read of the account of the creation of Adam and Eve, and the Divine mandate, “And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Genesis 2:16-17). (For exegetical purposes, allow me to state that the mandate was given prior to the creation of Eve).
God created Adam and Eve, he placed them above all creation, and gave them one command, and they were not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As the narrative in Genesis moves to chapter three, we find that the “serpent” had come to Eve, and he brought the first great temptation, “did God really say…”
As a result of the temptation, Adam and Eve both made a moral choice to believe the “father of lies” and disobey God’s command. Paul, speaking of the wickedness of the human race in Romans summed it up with thee words, “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie…”
What went wrong with the human race began with a decision in the Garden of Eden, and has been echoed through-ought the ages by mankind who continue to choose to listen to the father of lies, rather than obey God. As a result of mankind’s rebellion, human history has been filled with evil, violence, and sin. Rather than own up to our actions, we turn and blame God for what has gone wrong.
Earlier I spoke of Melissa’s (I changed her name) father who was searching for answer’s to why his daughter lay in critical condition at the Dartmouth Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., fighting for her life. Thirteen year’s later, the words echo in my mind, “Why did God allow his to happen?” The reality is that Melissa was in the hospital because she had been drinking alcohol and snorting cocaine. As a result, she slipped into a comma while driving down the road and ran into a building.
Mankind’s plight has been much like Melissa’s life. God did not make her drink, or do drugs. Rather, He gave warnings, just like He had to Adam and Eve, concerning the danger of making wrong choices, and the evil that would follow as a result.
We must understand that the answer to the question, “what went wrong,” can only be answered as we view mankind’s decision to rebel against God. All of the “bad things” that happen in life do so because humanity has chose to go its on way, ever spiraling away from God. There is only one cure for the ills of humanity.
Biblical World View - How Do We Fix It?
“You Christians claim that God is a God of love, hen why does He continue to allow evil to persist?” This is an often asked question, and I am amazed and saddened by the number of Christians who flounder when asked this very question.
We can make no mistake on this issue, the answer to this question must be well thought out and articulated. In his epistle, Peter makes the following point, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for your hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15)
Through-ought the history of mankind, man has sought for an answer to this question, “How do we fix it?” How do we fix the condition of humanity gone astray? Man has tried religion, politics, economics, and a great deal of other ideologies that have come along in an attempt to create some type of utopia. The question begs to be asked, “Can the right political belief, or economic status, or ideology bring about a perfect society in which the evils of mankind disappear?”
To answer this question, we do not have to look far back in history. Let’s consider the horrors of Auschwitz, and the slue of Jews who were savagely murdered in the attempt to create a perfect society. Or, we could consider the former Soviet Union, and the blood and oppression, all an attempt to create a better society.
We can look back a bit further to the French Revolution. July 14, 1789, a date that has gone down in infamy for the French people, the storming of the Bastille. It was a picture of the end of the old regime, the dawning of a new day, “liberalism.” The Liberalism movement “proposed to overthrow the evils that afflict mankind...” (Church History) The results to follow proved deadly; Bloody Sunday and the eventual takeover of another dictator type ruler, Napoleon.
Attempts to create a perfect society, to do away with the ills of humanity, outside of God’s Divine plan always reap disastrous results. If humanity is unable to fix what has gone wrong, what then is our hope?
Now we come back to the accusatory question, “how can a loving God allow all this evil to persist?” In a sense, “Why doesn’t God do anything?” (I find it amazing that the same people who make this type of statement want nothing to do with God when everything else is going well).
Is it true that a loving God sits back and does nothing? Is it true that God does not care about all the evil in the world? Let us consider what a loving God has done.
Any attempt outside of God’s plan to bring about the ideal utopian, or salvation if you will, will fall short. If mankind is unable to do anything to save itself, what then is our hope? The bible states “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24).
Scripture tells us that when the “fullness of time had come,” God sent forth his son. (Galatians 4:4). The son was sent to be a propitiation offering for the sins of the world. A loving God offered His one and only Son to be a peace offering between a Holy God and sinful man. Though mankind continued to rebel against God, He provide a way out.
The only way to fix the mess which humanity has made is by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Through Christ’s sacrifice, man is offered a personal relationship with a living God that restores man to a position he once had, prior to the fall.
Clearly, a true Biblical World View answers the questions, “Where did we come from?” “What went wrong?” and How do we fix it?” Now we will move on to consider the other prevalent view of Western Society, Postmodernism.
The unique commission of a Christian school is to teach students to think well and to think Biblically. Students should learn that Christianity offers an expansive understanding of the nature of the world and the meaning of human history. Though only the Holy Spirit can change a heart, students can be taught how to scrutinize many kinds of assertions according to logical and Scriptural criteria. To impart this Biblically grounded understanding of the world together with the means to defend it is to impart a Christian worldview.
The Christian worldview begins with the reality of the triune God and His self-revelation in creation, Christ, and the Bible. From these first principles flows a host of implications, which students must learn to recognize and to apply to a variety of questions. For example, the reality of the Christian God means that our world is created and subordinate. Our ultimate allegiance should be given only to God, not to human ideologies or institutions nor to any creature. However, the Christian doctrine of creation also teaches that the world is good and to be enjoyed and that humans are created in God’s image. We learn to reject philosophies that deny the value of human life, of marriage, of family, of government, or of any divine institution.
Formulating a Christian worldview is nothing other than submission to the Biblical command to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (II Corinthians 10:5). While our human reasoning is flawed, we have in Scripture an infallible guide to truth, beauty, and goodness. Using God’s gifts of language and reason, therefore, we strive to apply this rule to every area of human life, thinking through the ramifications of our faith. This is the aim of a Christian education.
