Why We Need a Biblical Worldview | Part 2
Last week I briefly mentioned a new survey highlighting pastors and the strength of their biblical worldview. The results are not good. To summarize, many pastors don’t have a biblical worldview. This is a problem for them and the church they help shepherd. At the root of this problem is a lack of discipleship. Because of this, we need to develop a disciple-making culture within the church that helps equip men, women, and children to foster a biblical worldview and how to make disciples who make disciples.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll be exploring the importance of cultivating a Biblical worldview among our churches and why this is essential in making disciples of Christ equipped for the works of service (Ephesians 4:12). Let’s begin by defining what a worldview is and why it matters, and then we’ll explain what a biblical worldview is and why it matters even more!
What is a worldview?
A worldview is a person’s view of the world. You can think of it as a comprehensive framework for understanding the world’s reality and how a person makes sense of their own individual story in the context of the story of the world at large. Or another way to put it is that a worldview is the comprehensive framework of one’s fundamental belief about things. I’ve heard some helpful metaphors: Your worldview is like a jigsaw puzzle box cover; it gives you a big picture of the overall puzzle. Your worldview is like a pair of glasses; you look through them to view the world around you.
Craig Bartholomew defines worldview in this way:
A worldview expresses the deepest and most basic (yet often unconscious) beliefs through which human beings perceive reality. Worldviews operate at a presuppositional and precognitive level; they have to do with the ultimate concerns that grip people’s lives. Worldviews function as a lens through which the whole world is seen, as a blueprint that gives direction for life, as a grid according to which people organize reality, and as a foundation that, though invisible, is vital in giving stability and structure to human life.
–Craig Bartholomew, A Comprehensive Framework for Understanding Scripture, p. 77.
What’s important about this, as Bartholomew posits, is that a worldview shapes the life of a community, and culture is a community shaped by a controlling story. The critical question is: what is that story?
Our worldview helps us answer questions like: Where do I come from? Who am I? What is my purpose? What is our core problem? What is the solution to that problem? How should I live? What happens when I die?
Other questions arise from our worldview, but the point is that our worldview shapes how we live everyday life. In other words, our worldview helps defines the story in which we live.
What is a Biblical Worldview?
A biblical (or Christian) worldview is a view of the world that is grounded in Scripture and emerges out of Scripture. It is a worldview grounded in the biblical story and confronts the counterfeit worldviews of the day. A biblical/Christian worldview is the way to see the biblical story as an encompassing narrative. It is a story within which we find our individual stories, providing a way for us to understand our identity and purpose and that of all creation. Thus, our development of a Christian worldview is not to be understood as an end but as a precondition for us to live on God’s mission faithfully.
Whew! Do you get that? That’s pretty academic. Here’s the bottom line: A Christian worldview insists that the biblical story is not just one more story alongside others but rather the true story of the world. And because of that, a Christian worldview centers on Christ. Any worldview that becomes disconnected from the whole experience of life in Jesus Christ leads to a distorted, intellectualized Christianity that lacks grace and humility. A truly biblical worldview centers on a relationship with Christ.
A biblical or Christian worldview can answer the questions that I listed above:
- Where do we come from? God created us.
- Who are we? We are human beings made in the image of God.
- What is our purpose? God created us to know and follow him as we fill the earth and reign over creation as his stewards/managers.
- What is our core problem? We fall short of God’s glory because we pridefully resist God’s good, right, and perfect rule as a threat to our flourishing.
- How is this problem solved? We turn from walking in our ways for our glory and turn in faith to Jesus as King, Lord, and Savior, pledging allegiance to him alone. Jesus forgives our sin, fills us with His Spirit, and recreates us in his image.
- How should we live? We live in the ways of Jesus, and we can summarize his ways as loving God and loving others.
- What happens when I die? We are either with God or apart from God for all eternity, based on our relationship with Jesus through faith.
Indeed, there are many other questions that God’s story answers, and many disciples may offer slight variations in their answers. But we see that God’s story – the Bible – offers us direction for our individual and corporate lives. I like how Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew put it in their brilliant book, Living at the Crossroads:
“A worldview not only describes the world for us, but also directs our life in the world. It not only gives us a perspective on how the world is (its descriptive function), but also acts as a guide for how the world ought to be and how we ought to live in the world (its normative function)…Thus, a Christian worldview is about abstracting and expressing the most comprehensive beliefs embedded in the biblical drama, through which we understand God, humanity, and the world.”
–Michael Goheen & Craig Bartholomew, Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview, p. 25-26).
Next time we’ll look at the different worldviews preeminent in culture today and explore more what a biblical worldview looks like that is rooted and grounded in Scripture. Until then, consider how you would answer the questions I listed above. Would you have similar responses? What would be different?
I’m praying for you, FBC!
–Wade
