What has gone wrong with the world? What can we do to fix it? How now shall we live? Even if one makes more obscure suggestions, such as Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking who intimated that we were seeded here by another race of beings from another planet, one would then have to account for their existence. Because we were created, there is value in each person.
There is meaning and purpose to every life. There is Someone above and outside of our existence who stands over it as authority. Especially in the United States, we live in a pluralistic society. Some of us who live in the United States will find that much of the world has come to us. Someone from a very different place and with a very different worldview may live right next door to us.
What a unique and special opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission! As Christians, we are called to be wise, meek, and ready to give an answer. This is why He commanded us to be wise—that is skillful in making distinctions and discerning. We must be so familiar with the Christian worldview that we can smell a half-truth from a mile away. This wisdom will also aid us as we are communicating with someone who has a contradictory worldview. Additionally, how can we best start a gospel conversation with someone of a different worldview if we do not have a basic understanding of their worldview?
Having a thorough understanding of our worldview and a basic understanding of other worldviews will help us to see unique barriers that may be between our neighbors and the gospel message. In order to a be an effective witness for Christ, we must be conscious of and committed to our Christian worldview.
Examining our worldview also matters for consistent living. As we have already referenced, this world is constantly bombarding us with worldly philosophies and vain deceit.
We must be deliberate about what messages we allow into our hearts through these mediums. Sometimes our lifestyle is more informed by these things than by the Word of God. Yet we will not realize that we our living inconsistently with our Christian worldview if we have never consciously considered the implications of our worldview. Faith is also taught. The Bible prioritizes teaching as the primary method of helping future generations know Christ and grow in maturity.
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk about them when you sit, walk, lie down, and when you rise Deut He commanded our [grand]fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children Ps Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord Eph Older women Older men Parents and grandparents are to use the Bible to shape who a child becomes and how the child lives.
This is the pattern and command of Scripture. Parents and grandparents in Deuteronomy were commanded to teach the law of God Ten Commandments to children so that future generations develop an understanding of right and wrong.
The father and mother in Proverbs provide an example on how to train children to develop a biblical view of life as they instruct their son to make wise choices about friendship , money , marriage , and work , and more. The grandparents of Titus 2 shape future generations by providing character training and guidance on how to be a godly mother and wife.
A biblical worldview helps children defend their faith. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. The strategy that Paul provides is simple. We are to teach the core truth of Scripture so that a Christian is established in the faith, then introduce a competing belief system and dismantle it by exposing why it is false.
The two most prominent philosophies children are exposed to today are secular humanism and socialism. Familiarize yourself with them, learn what they teach, why they are deficient, and be able to point out these arguments when you see them in education, media, or culture. In a post-Christian society, children are going to face strong opposition and competing belief systems, and unless they are rooted in the Bible, they will absorb the ideas of our day and assimilate to the beliefs of our culture.
Our aim is to shape the beliefs of young people, and to do that, we must train children to defend their faith against deceptive and competing belief systems.
A biblical worldview answers the big questions children ask: Where did I come from? Ready to dive in for more? What is a worldview? It involves what we love and long for.
It can be expressed as a story or in a set of assumptions about reality. These assumptions about reality may be held consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently.
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