Worldview

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How do we understand the world around us or interpret the information that we receive? Understanding and interpretation demand that we have some fixed points from which we anchor our basic understanding of things, so that we can then decode the meaning. For instance, when learning a language one must learn the system of symbols and how those symbols or letters come together to convey meaning. The understanding of this meaning allows one to decode the more complex structures which form ideas and concepts.

A Biblical Worldview

I think that when most of us hear the terminology of a Biblical worldview we probably mean a worldview shaped by the Bible. While I think that as believers it is of vital importance that we understand reality according to the revelation of God in the Scriptures, we must first understand the Scriptures. So, before we concern ourselves with what kind of worldview the Bible will form in us, we should be seeking to have a Biblical worldview. Meaning the view of the world into which the revelation was given. This is the historical and cosmological worldview of the original audience. 

I believe that we as modern readers often miss the point of what God was and is doing in the world because we are blinded by our sterile scientific modern cosmology. Throughout the Old Testament we see God many times referring to how judgments including many things that we would consider natural phenomena are meant to show the judged people that He is Yahweh (the LORD). One example of this is in Exodus 14:4, in this place God tells Moses that He will make the Egyptians know that He is the Lord by overthrowing them in the Red Sea. But how would the Egyptians be able to interpret the drowning of the army in the sea as proof that Yahweh is the true and greatest God? Of course this is not a natural event, but God does use the elements of nature such as the wind to accomplish this amazing deliverance of His people and destruction of the Egyptian army. The only way that the Egyptians would have been able to comprehend this event as the proof of the greatness of the God of the Isrealites would be for the people of that time to have a worldview that assumed the radical and meticulous control of the world and events such that their circumstances would prove that Yahweh is the greatest God!

Many people today often scoff when some tragedy strikes and believers point out that this may be God’s judgment but if we would believe the Bible then we should consider the judgment and warning of greater judgment a part of the Biblical worldview. Even Jesus used tragedies to point the people to the danger that they were in if they continued to sin and did not turn to God in faith (Luke 13:1-5).

If we are truly going to believe the conclusions about truth, salvation, and the promises of eternal life contained in the Bible then we also must believe the framework from which those conclusions emerge. This does not mean that we must deny knowledge of how God has made and ordered the world which we have learned from careful observation and technological advancement. But we must not forget that behind the natural observation of these things God is working supernaturally to bring about His will and glorify His holy name. We must be on guard against becoming so secular, critical, and sceptical that we will not believe the things the Bible clearly and plainly says.

Remember, even the Gospel message itself which consists of the reality that God paid for the sins of people both Jews and Greeks through the scandal of Jesus’ death on the cross, that this salvation was confirmed through His victorious resurrection from the dead, and finally, that this hope is available to anyone of any ethnic background through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says that to the Jews this message is an unbelievable scandal and to the Greeks it is a foolish fairytale (1 Corinthians 1:18-24). But this is the Gospel that God has revealed and the only hope of the Christian (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). I would urge you not to be captivated by the carefully crafted fictions of the modern worldview, but rather receive the instruction of the word of God and rest in the hope and promises that are founded on His word.

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