A Biblical Worldview

The Church as a Contrast Society
(A Biblical Worldview)

Everyone reads the Bible through filters — sometimes LOTS of filters. 

I know… people sometimes say, “Well, I just believe the BIBLE – that is my doctrine.” Sounds good, until you dissect that and realize that everyone reads the Bible through filters. You and I read the same passage of scripture, and sometimes it says something different to each of us because of our experience, age, gender, race, culture, traditions, education, and a thousand other factors.

Just for example — if you are a person with a heart for the poor… or if your ARE poor… you will see God’s heart for the poor coming through in passages others miss.

If you are deeply concerned about the status of women, or the disenfranchised, or children… you will read through those filters, seeing —(or perhaps UNDERSTANDING)— things others simply do not see.

So we have these individual filters… and we also have the reverse: when we read the Bible frequently, consistently, we begin to have our thinking, our perspective changed… you learn to see everything with a Biblical Worldview.

The way you see the world around you — sociologically, politically, economically… in every way, really — changes. You no longer see and interpret the world through natural eyes. You see and interpret the world through SPIRITUAL eyes… seeing things the way God sees them.

“The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7 NIV

Remember that we are not physical beings with a spirit; we are SPIRITUAL beings with a physical body!

EVERYONE has a worldview. EVERYone.

The President has a worldview, the Governor has a worldview, the average person on the street has a worldview… some of them are clearly more well-defined than others, and some make more sense than others, but everyone has a worldview. The reason we find ourselves in such dramatic conflict with the surrounding society today is that, unlike most of them, we see everything through a Christian World View.

“Church” is not just somewhere we go every weekend.
“Church” is not a physical location, or a building…
“Church” is who we are, as individuals, living out our faith in this community of fellow believers and ALSO living out our faith in our everyday lives, our jobs, and in every aspect of our lives.

To those who don’t share our faith, this simply doesn’t compute. They don’t understand why our faith compels us to speak out so forcefully on matters of morality, and why we can’t just shut up.

Well, we can’t. Our worldview includes the NECESSITY to be vocal and actively proclaiming truth. The Bible is filled with stories of believers acting as the prophetic voice speaking in opposition to the trends of culture. It is part of our mission! One of the clashes we often have is when the government or society attempts to define us, or limit, or restrict our mission to the four walls of the church, and even tell us what is acceptable or not within those four walls. We demand the right to define our mission based upon our Christian World View, and not someone else’s idea of what an institutional church should be.

SO let me list for you a few of the fundamental Biblical foundations that shape our world view:

We believe that God exists. 
(This puts our worldview directly at odds with the atheistic views popular in today’s society.)
We believe that God is the standard by which we measure everything else. 
(Not culture, not the changing winds of political opinion, not emotion…)
We believe that God created everything that exists, and that everything is held together by him. 
(As a consequence, we believe that he holds ultimate authority over everything and everyone.
We believe the Bible is God’s divinely inspired Word, revealed to mankind. 
That means that, unlike the secular society, we have an objective standard of absolute truth by which we measure everything. Everything. It means we do not accept that all opinions are equal.
We believe that believing in, and obeying, Jesus Christ is the only way to have eternal life or to be reunited with God.
 Any time you start making any claims of exclusivity in a pluralistic society you can expect to clash with others, because this position is viewed as narrow-minded and judgmental. Jesus said, “I am the way, the Truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) That one verse can start a flame war with those who believe there are many paths to God, and that “that may be YOUR truth, but it’s not MY truth.”

Christianity is believed by faith; it is a reasonable and rational faith. It answers the questions of the mind and the heart.

We all live by faith.

• Some people have faith in themselves.
• Some have faith in the government or in a hope for world peace.
• Some have faith in their money, their education or their employment.
All of those things are temporary and can change. They can all let us down. Our health can fail, we can lose our job, we can end a meaningful relationship with someone we care about. Life changes, but God can be depended on through it all. He will never leave nor forsake those who belong to Him. (Heb. 13:5b)

I pray that you will allow Christ to live in your hearts by faith, and that you will come to know and understand the height and the depth and the width and the length of the Love of Christ, which surpasses all human knowledge.