For those of you who possess authentic faith in Jesus Christ and are committed to the historic teachings of the Bible,…you are very important members of the contemporary culture. Even though that has been the case throughout the history of Christianity, I believe it could be said that never has our culture needed you more than it does today. I encourage you to take your role in society with a great deal of seriousness.…[T]he great concern I have is for the alarming rate that unbelief and evil are growing right here at home. Something must be done to combat this growing trend. If change is to come, it must start with true Christians living out their faith.…You must strive with all you have and with true sincerity to make a difference in this country.
—William Wilberforce, who fought courageously against all odds against slavery in Great Britain as a Member of Parliament, in 17971—
I would say 90 percent of Christians do not have a worldview, in other words a view of the world, based on the Scripture and a relationship with God.
—Josh McDowell—
Key point: The Bible is like a lighthouse, compass, a roadmap, a watch, an anchor, and prescription glasses that enable the wearer to see with accuracy and precision.
Stand-up comedian Stephen Wright is well-known for saying, “I was walking down the street wearing my glasses and my prescription ran out. I thought, ‘Why can’t I see clearly?'”
Our spiritual vision is trickier than our physical vision. Your optometrist’s prescription for your glasses won’t run out, but if you’re not careful, your ability to see the world through a biblical lens will wane. That’s why Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, and to us,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God (Rom. 12:1-2).
Deciphering the Hidden Code
Have you ever played “Password”? I’m referring to the home version. Each team has cards that are about the size of a bookmark, and the passwords are printed on them in blue ink with a red design printed over them. The design hides the passwords so they can’t be read with an unaided eye. Vinyl or cardboard sleeves that come with the game unveil the passwords. Each sleeve has a ruby-tinted window built into it. When a player puts a card into a sleeve and slides it up and down, he or she can align each word with the window, making it possible to read each one.
Even if you haven’t played the home version of “Password,” you’re probably familiar with this method of keeping text hidden and “decoding” it by looking at the text through red-tinted plastic or cellophane. Through the tinted, see-through plastic, the otherwise unreadable words can be read and understood easily.
An accurate worldview is like that see-through “decoder window” in a Password sleeve. Strictly defined, a worldview is a set of presuppositions through which an individual interprets the world around him or her. Even more broadly, it is “a pattern of ideas, beliefs, convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world.”2
Core Questions
Christians believe the biblical worldview is the only accurate belief system. This is not to say that other worldviews do not have any accurate components, but that as a belief system, only the biblical worldview represents reality as it is. Furthermore, it responds to the core questions of life with answers that fit the evidence and that make sense.
What are life’s “core questions”? Here we would like to propose three.
- Where did I come from? (How does the past define who I am and what’s wrong?)
- Where do I fit in? (How do I live now? Who are the important people in my life and how do I relate to them? If God exists, how do I relate to Him?)
- Where am I going? (What can I expect in the future? Should I hope or dread the future? Is there anything I can do to impact my future and the future of the world?)
These questions are similar, but not identical, to questions well known Christian worldview experts (including Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey,3 N. T. Wright,4 and Gregory Koukl5) have proposed. We choose this set of questions because 1) the questions either are or are similar to questions people typically ask, even unconsciously, and 2) they reflect the universal experience of moving through time, something that every story does, whether it is the story of an individual, a group, or applicable to every person universally.
God’s revelation of Himself in both Scripture and nature help us answer these questions adequately.
How Does Scripture Align with Reality—the World as We Know and Experience It?
In this post, against the backdrop of our all-important questions, we’re going to explore just how the Bible and the world around us fit together. We did this in one of the earliest posts ever published at Word Foundations. The contents of that article are worth revisiting. Remember that the Bible is the source that informs, or supplies the substance for the biblical, or the Christian, worldview. Does what we read in the Bible fit what we see around us, in the observable world? If the two do align, then we have greater reason to trust the Bible for the answers to the questions we have posed; we can see evidence the biblical worldview is valid.
One caveat. I’m speaking of a general alignment here—not obvious perfect agreement at every point. The Bible tells us a great deal, but it doesn’t tell us everything. If something doesn’t seem to fit, we must realize our own understanding and knowledge might be limited, either with regard to the Bible, the world around us, or both. An overall alignment, however, would indicate that the Bible is a likely source for reliable information about the real world in a broad sense. Christians believe it is absolute truth, and for many good reasons. Let’s look at some of those reasons by way of a powerful illustration.
The Two-Story Cabin in the Woods
Just how do the testimony of nature and what we read in the Bible fit together? Francis Schaeffer offers an illustration that brilliantly answers this question.6 Here’s a summary of his analogy.
Suppose we are walking through a forest, and we come upon a two-story cabin. We begin to explore the inside of the cabin, and on the first floor we find a table. On the table we discover the bottom portion of a book that has been ripped in two, leaving about one inch of type on each page. We can read what is printed on the bottom of these pages, but we cannot decipher the entire story, the complete message of the book’s author. Of course, no one among us ever would suggest that what we have has come into being by chance. An intelligent being is the clear source of the section of the book we are examining with great curiosity.
As we continue exploring, we go upstairs and find the top portion of the same book. We now can bring the two sections of the book together and at last can read the entire message of the author. We can understand the complete story he sought to convey when he wrote. Moreover, through the book, we can get to know the author. This is especially true because in the book, the author tells us about himself.
They Fit!
The bottom portion of the book—the section we discovered on the first floor—represents nature, the world around us, the cosmos, and the created order. The top section represents the Scriptures; in them nature and human relationships are explained. As we read the top and bottom pages together, as they were mean to be read, the bottom pages make much more sense. We note that what the bottom pages tell us coincides perfectly with all we learn from reading the top part of the book. We now understand not just “what,” but “why.” Our questions about life and nature are answered in the Bible—not exhaustively, but adequately.
- We learn why evil exists in the world.
- We can understand how nature reflects God’s perfect character, even though the world and even the universe have been marred and damaged by sin and evil.
- We understand why death occurs.
- Furthermore, we read of God’s solution to the mess we’re in, and we discover that we can respond to Him in a personal way because He has revealed Himself personally to us. God didn’t just unveil Himself in nature and in the Bible; He also came and lived among us as a real human being in and through His Son, Jesus Christ.
In Hebrews 1:1-4, the writer of Hebrews declared,
1God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
These words remind us of what the apostle John said about Jesus in John 1:1,14: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus, of course, affirmed the teachings of Scripture in His public ministry (see Matt. 5:17-18). In turn, as the analogy we have cited so clearly illustrates, the Bible explains what nature reveals (see Ps. 19:1-4).
Even without the Bible or a specific knowledge of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ, people know enough about God from nature’s testimony to be “without excuse” (see Rom. 1:20).
Yet, even without the Bible or a specific knowledge of God’s revelation of Himself in Christ, people know enough about God from nature’s testimony to be “without excuse.” Paul wrote, “For since the creation of the world His [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they [the unrighteous, but by implication all people] are without excuse” (see Rom. 1:20). Undeniably, though, the Bible explains what we see, know, and experience in the world in which we live.
The Bible, and as a Result the Biblical Worldview, Are the Ruby-Tinted Window
How does Scripture answer the core questions we have raised? While we can’t consider the answers in great detail at this point, we observe that we learn enough to have adequate, though not exhaustive, answers.
- Where did I come from? (How does the past define who I am and what’s wrong?) Each human individual has been created by God as either a male or female, in His image. God is eternal, personal, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and holy, to name a few of His many attributes. He created the universe, the world, and all that is in it; and He created life. His highest creation is the human family. He put the first man and woman in a perfect environment and gave them work to do, and they had perfect fellowship with Him. Yet they chose to disobey Him, and when they did, their relationship with Him was disrupted. Sin entered the world and corrupted it. It also marred, but did not eliminate, God’s image on individual human beings. Since Adam and Eve sinned, the entire human race has a sin nature, a proclivity to sin. Thus, in his or her natural state, no one has any interest in God or the things of God. This is what’s wrong with the world and why we intuitively know things are not as they ought to be.
- Where do I fit in? (How do I live NOW? Who are the important people in my life and how do I relate to them? If God exists, how do I relate to Him?) Loving humanity and wanting each member to have fellowship with Him, God provided a way for sins to be forgiven and human beings to be reconciled to Him. Yet He did not resolve the problem instantly. He first revealed Himself to various members of the human family and worked in and through their lives to pave the way for implementation of His plan. The passage from Hebrews we cited above (1:1-4) highlights some of the ways God revealed Himself. As we look at the biblical record, it is clear that through a variety of means, God revealed Himself in history. Ultimately, He sent His own Son, who also was and is God, to earth to live a perfect life, to speak of God and His kingdom, and to be executed for human sin. Jesus was crucified on a Passover Friday and was raised again to life on the following Sunday morning. His resurrection proved that God the Father approved of His Son’s sacrifice, and that all who rely on Christ’s death for forgiveness of sins are indeed divinely forgiven. They move from spiritual death to life and will live forever with Christ in heaven after their lives on earth are over. In the meantime, believers in Christ have work to do as they represent Him in their various spheres of influence. With the new life Christ gives, they also have a new perspective on life and a new perspective on people. They see each person as infinitely valuable, a part of God’s highest creation. And they see the resources they have been afforded as tools to use to glorify God and to point others to a relationship with Him. Furthermore, they have the help of the Holy Spirit (see John 14:15-18) the Third Person of the Trinity, to live lives that reflect Christ’s holiness.
- Where am I going? (What can I expect in the future? Should I hope or dread the future? Is there anything I can do to impact my future and the future of the world?) Forty days after Jesus rose from the dead, He ascended back to heaven and is at the right hand of the Father (see Acts 2:32-33). One day He will return to earth to judge the world (see Acts 1:4-11; Matt. 25:31-46). At that point, God will eliminate evil, but He will do so in a way that spares those who have come to Him on His conditions, even though they also have, in the past, rebelled against Him. Now, being in Christ, they are shielded from God’s wrath because Christ has endured it on their behalf. After the judgment, the redeemed will live forever with God in heaven, and those who rejected Christ will endure eternal punishment in hell. God respects them enough to honor their choice in this matter. He did everything He could to bring them to Himself.
Of course, there are other questions beyond these three that the biblical worldview answers, including
- Why doesn’t God reveal Himself in a way that removes all doubt about His existence? In a previous post we sought to answer this question.
- Why are human beings unique? We attempted to provide an answer here.
- Why do Christians claim Jesus is the only way to God? Explore the answer to this question here.
The Bottom Line
Thus, the Bible and the biblical worldview are the ruby-tinted window that enables us to see the world clearly. Again, this doesn’t mean we have all our questions answered. Nor does it mean that Scripture and the biblical worldview are like “rose-tinted glasses” that paint the world as a place without problems. On the contrary, they let us see the world and life as they really are.
In other words, they give us the truth. Jesus said, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).
In turn, the truth also aids us in renewing our minds…
…to keep our spiritual vision sharp and in focus!
Copyright © 2019 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Rick Edwards contributed to this article.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture passages have been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Notes:
1William Wilberforce, Real Christianity: A Paraphrase in Modern English of A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity, published in 1797, revised and updated by Dr. Bob Belz, (Ventura, CA: Regal/Gospel Light, 2006), 195-196.
2Jeff Myers and David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2015), 6.
3Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton: Tyndale, 1999), xiii.
4N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, (Fortress Press: ________ , 1992), 123.
5Greg Koukl, The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between,(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 25.
6Francis A. Schaeffer, The God Who is There: 30th Anniversary Edition (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press 1998, 1982, 1968), 137-138.
Password ® is a registered trademark of FremantleMedia Operations BV.
Be First to Comment