What is a Christian Worldview Today?

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life.

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It's always good to be home. Amen. Well, this week in our series Pathways, Major Mike Harris is going to be asking the question, what is a Christian worldview in the age of deconstructing faith? I think for a lot of Christians, their worldview has been shaped by so many influences. This is kind of like a check-in to see if your worldview still lines up with scripture. I hear a lot of conversations about your truth. And when that's outside of our Christian faith, we begin entering a theology where there are no absolute moral truths.

And it's an incredibly interesting and powerful episode. I just want to go on the record that oftentimes our truth doesn't make it God's truth. His word is infallible. That is the light for our path. And oftentimes we misinterpret, maybe even misunderstand when a scripture is shared or read or however you consume scripture. If you think of it as the bread of life, are you feasting on it daily?

We need to make sure that if we are going to be Christians in this crazy mixed up world that we live in, that we are sharing and living or living and sharing God's truth, which is the only thing. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we'd love to hear your thoughts on this series so far. So if you are interested in writing us or sharing a prayer request with us, please send us an email at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org or call us 1-800-229-9965. Well, hello, and welcome back to our sessions called Pathways. And again, these podcasts that we're looking at are talking about our thought life and again, our ability to check our thoughts and our internal philosophies. And today we're going to look at the idea of a worldview. What is a worldview and why does a worldview matter? Now, there are a lot of worldviews out there. You could almost argue there are about as many worldviews as there are people, but it's probably not far off that in some truth, because I think the concept of a worldview is often distorted by the place in which we spend our time. So for instance, if we spend a lot of time watching television, that immediately affects our worldview.

It may be the news channel that you prefer, the books that you read, the social media comments that appeal to you. And it's easy to get sucked into someone else's worldview and therefore makes their worldview or their belief system more palatable to you. So what is a worldview?

Let's start there. David Nobel, better known for the book, Understanding the Times, describes a worldview this way. A worldview is the framework from which we view reality and make sense of life and the world, any ideology, philosophy, theology, movement, or religion that provides an overarching approach to understanding God, the world and man's relations to God and the world. So as Christians, we should expect to have a biblical worldview. So rhetorically, I'm going to ask you, what is a Christian worldview? What do you think a Christian worldview is?

And while you're considering that question, I want you to note a couple of things. First of all, the amount of people with a biblical worldview has declined by 50% in the last 25 years. And very significantly, the amount of people between the ages of 18 and 29 who hold a biblical worldview is 2%. So what is your worldview?

If you're a two-year-old, you would believe that you were the center of the world. That would be your worldview. If you were a secular humanist, you would believe that the material world is all that exists.

If you were a Buddhist, you would believe that you can be liberated from suffering by self-purification. But a person with a biblical worldview believes his primary reason for existence is to love and serve God. And what does it mean to love God? It means the exact same thing as it did in the Garden of Eden. It means to obey him.

That's what love is. Love is to obey God. In 1 John chapter 2, John writes this, and we need to listen carefully to the conjunctions if and but, the words if and but, as I read this portion of scripture. And John writes this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says I know him but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we must know we are in him. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. And how did Jesus live?

He lived in complete submission to the Father. To love God is to obey God. And one of God's primary instructions, of course, is also to love thy neighbor as thyself.

And perhaps this is where, as a church, we can get ourselves in a little bit of a tangle. Because perhaps we've taken this command to love thy neighbor beyond the command itself. So instead of loving our neighbor and working to bring them into a right relationship with Christ, we started to water down God's laws by justifying sin and saying God loves you, and in the process we completely redefined grace. Friends, grace does not represent the elimination of sin to the point we can do what we want.

Grace is the genuine forgiveness given to a person who has turned their back on sin and chosen to obey Christ. I think at the center of this, the central issue of our confused world views is true biblical knowledge. In a life-wave study, they found that only 32% of American Christians who are Protestant and a chan church regularly read the Bible. That means that 68% of Protestant Christians do not read their Bibles regularly. Therefore, is it any surprise that so few people hold a biblical worldview? So our biblical illiteracy, combined with the loudness of the world, has created this splintering of Christianity. Progressive churches have a very strong emphasis on social justice with the central instruction to love one another. But what of the Bible? Well, they believe that the Bible was written by well-meaning people who were trying their best to understand God at the time in which they lived. Therefore, the progressive Christians believe that the Bible is not God-inspired, an inerrant word.

And this thinking has become a lot more prevalent over the last 25 years, and its effect is being seen throughout the Protestant faith, where we see divisions or schisms in well-established denominations. So what I want to do right now is to pause for just a moment, and I want you to consider whether or not you have a biblical worldview. I'm going to ask eight questions. The simple answer is yes or no, and in your mind as I read them, I want you to answer these questions. Again, either yes or no.

And here are the questions. First question, do absolute moral truths exist? Second question, is absolute truth defined by the Bible? Did Jesus live a sinless life? Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing creator of the universe, and does he still rule today? Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?

Is Satan real? Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people? And finally, the eighth question, is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings? Now this is a standard question, but I want you to think about it for a moment. Now this is a standard set of questions, and if you answered yes to all of these questions, then you hold a biblical worldview, because all of these things are taught in Scripture. But if you have at least one no, you hold a view, therefore, that is not consistent with what the Bible says. Now in keeping with Salvation Army belief that Scripture is God's inerrant Word, and that the Scriptures alone constitute the divine rule of Christians, faith, and practice, we therefore have to work to reconcile our no answers. We have to think them through, we have to reason them through, and really use Scripture as our standard.

While God gave us the ability to reason and to think outside of his will, if we really love him, and remember to love him is to obey him, if we really love him, we must use Scripture to bring our thoughts into line with God for the sake of the world. So what is your biblical worldview? Indeed, what is your worldview? Make sure you align it to God, because again, I believe the hope to this world is us in unity combined, showing God through the lives that we live. Let us pray together as we think about our role in this world and our worldview. Gracious Lord, I believe that you gave to us your holy Scriptures as a gift, as a guide, as a foundation for our very lives. And yet, Lord, this world seems to have increasing amount of things that take our attention away from it, and we dedicate less and less time to reading your Word. And Lord, I think it's fair to say that all of us, myself included, can sometimes get a bit lazy in the way that we look at the world. Heavenly Father, help us to go back to what's important, to make time to get down on our knees and pray to you, to open your Scriptures that you might reveal them to us. Because, Heavenly Father, there's a world out there that needs better from us. While we might complain about the shifting paradigms or we might complain about the division and the crisis that we see in so many places around our world, yes, Lord, we're in the midst of a pandemic, but I think there are even greater concerns. And I've often believed, Lord, that, well, our politicians aren't going to fix it.

Our people in authority are not going to fix it. Because, Heavenly Father, you've always had a design, that this world can only be fixed by us and your Holy Spirit working through us. So, Lord, may we get back to what we need to understand, get back to basics. If we want to be a difference in this world, it has to come through you and through your Word. So, Heavenly Father, for all who are listening to this, if there are any that know they need to spend more time in your Word, may they stop what they're doing, grab their Bible, and begin this journey so that, Heavenly Father, again, we can present you to this world in the best way that we can, and that's a life consistent with you and a life that's changed. I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. And we'd love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

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