Worldview: Diving Deeper
By Jeanne Dennis, Colson Fellow and Centurion
As Christians, we must know what we believe and why. Then we can present the truth accurately to our children and help them hold on to it for life, with the help of God. So let’s dive deeper into worldview.
Biblical Truth Is Not Up for Question
Contrary to popular public opinion, the facts of the Christian faith are not up for committee approval. They are eternal truths, found in the Bible, witnessed in creation, and, to a certain extent, written on the hearts of every man, woman, and child.
Media Distorts Truth
Contemporary media, by virtue of its delivery, dulls the mind. By virtue of its content, it distorts truth.
Media today desensitizes and conditions its viewers, listeners, and readers to accept false ideas and promotes hedonism in all its forms. Eventually, what is unnatural begins to appear natural, and what is wrong and evil appears right and good (Isa. 5:20).
Truth Is Found in the Bible
How can we fight against this onslaught of lies? Truth is found in the Bible, so we must continually search there for answers to the great questions of life.
What the Christian Worldview Teaches
Truth is found in the Bible, so we must continually search there for answers to the great questions of life.
As you prepare to teach your children the Christian worldview, this list may help you get started. It is by no means complete.
About Truth
- Truth exists and is knowable.
- God is the ultimate truth.
- Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the light. No one goes to the Father except through Him.
About God
- There is only one God, the living God who exists eternally.
- God is one, existing in three persons, known as the Godhead.
- The Godhead includes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
- Everything proceeds from the Father in fellowship with the Son and Holy Spirit.
- God is perfect truth, beauty, light, and goodness.
- God is love.
About Creation
- God created the universe from nothing with only His word.
- The Son is the Word. Nothing was made without Him.
- God created mankind, and only mankind (both male and female), in His image.
- God gave mankind stewardship of the earth and its creatures.
About Our Relationship with God
- God created mankind to glorify Him and to have fellowship with Him.
- Mankind (through Adam) willfully broke fellowship with God in disobedience.
- Only God could restore fellowship with mankind and restore creation to its original goodness. He planned this restoration from the beginning.
- God doesn’t want anyone to perish, and He provided the way for reconciliation.
About Sin
- Adam’s disobedience (sin) affected all of God’s creation.
- The penalty for sin is death. Mankind’s sin brought death to humans and all living things. It disrupted the original perfection of creation and brought death, disease, and catastrophe to the earth.
- Although we are to seek perfection, all humans are imperfect. All have sinned.
- Sin is doing what is wrong. It is wrong to let anything come before God. It is wrong to worship idols (anything that takes God’s place in our lives). It is wrong to use the name of God disrespectfully or as part of a swear word. It is wrong to disobey parents. It is wrong to kill. It is wrong to commit adultery or have intimate relations with anyone who is not your spouse. It is wrong to lust after someone. It is wrong to lie. It is wrong to wish that you could have what belongs to another, either his wife or his goods.
- It is right to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength.
- It is right to love our neighbor as ourselves.
- When we sin or do wrong, we have an advocate, a lawyer in heaven, pleading for us—Jesus.
About Redemption and Salvation
- Only a perfect sacrifice could pay the price for sin.
- Only God is perfect.
- The only sacrifice that could pay for sin was God in human form but without sin.
- God the Son emptied Himself of glory, came to earth as a baby, and took on human flesh.
- The sin nature is passed on from father to child. Jesus was born of a virgin so that the sin nature was not passed to him. His nature came from the heavenly Father when the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and made her pregnant.
- The perfect God-man, Jesus Christ, paid sin’s penalty of death for all mankind. He who never sinned became sin for us.
- “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NIV).
- God chooses to forget our confessed sins.
- We are not forgiven by our own good deeds, but through the merit of Jesus.
- We take on the righteousness of God through the salvation God Himself provided through Jesus.
- Death could not hold Jesus, the Creator of life. He rose on the third day and is alive.
- Jesus ascended from the earth back to glory and sits at the right hand of the Father.
- Jesus is preparing a place for all believers to someday live in glory with Him.
About the Holy Spirit
- Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to earth as an encourager, revealer of truth, intercessor, and comforter for those who believe in Him.
- The Holy Spirit seals believers for redemption and eternal life with God.
- The Holy Spirit lives inside believers, providing the means of intimacy with God.
- Since God lives within believers, our bodies are temples of God.
- As temples of God, we must honor Him with our bodies, and keep ourselves pure with His help.
- The Holy Spirit helps us when we don’t know how to pray.
About the Christian Life
- We live in hope because we have the promise of eternal life.
- We live in peace because we have salvation.
- We abide (live) in God’s presence through the Holy Spirit.
- When we abide in love, we abide in God, and God abides in us.
- We live in joy because of God’s presence in our lives.
- We have the mind of Christ.
- We have good works to do that God prepared for us in advance.
- We are to care for the earth, but not worship it.
- We are to love our neighbors
- We are to do all to the glory of God.
- We are to be thankful in everything.
- We are to wait patiently for God to work His will.
- We are to pray without ceasing.
- We are each part of the church, Christ’s body.
- Jesus will return to take us as His bride.
For we are His workmanship (literally, His “poem”), created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Eph. 2:10