Discipleship 101
New Believer
Introductory Lesson
Developing A Biblical Worldview
By Andy Madonio
April 24, 2011
Introduction:
“Each day Christians are confronted with a bewildering array of choices in ethics, actions, and lifestyles. The only way to make sense of this data is to have a consistent worldview. And Christians should be operating from a biblical worldview. As we will see, that is often not the case.
“Everyone has a worldview, but relatively few people (even religious people) have a biblical worldview. This explains a great deal about behavior. One reason so few people act like Christians is because they don’t think like Christians. Behavior results from our values and beliefs. Thinking biblically about the issues of life should ultimately result in living biblically in society. Conversely, not thinking biblically should result in not living biblically within society.”
Kerby Anderson, Worldview and Truth, Probe Ministries
What Is True? What Is Real?
Everyone has a worldview, but most don’t even know it. What is a biblical worldview? Why is it critical that disciples, apprentices of Jesus have a biblical worldview? Here is a good definition that underscores the importance of possessing a healthy, accurate, and informed biblical worldview:
“A worldview . . . is a set of beliefs and practices that shape a person’s approach to the most important issues in life. Through our worldview, we determine priorities, explain our relationship to God and fellow human beings, assess the meaning of events, and justify our actions. Our worldview even speaks to the most ordinary practices in everyday life, including the types of things we read and view, the types of entertainment and leisure activities we seek, our approach to work, and much more.”
Michael Palmer – Elements of a Christian Worldview
A strong and vibrant Christian worldview captures everything – all of reality, and holds it in the arms of truth. Today, the secular world (and sadly, many believers in Jesus) has partitioned “truth” into two distinct and separate categories: One is science and reason; the other is religion and morality. These two areas of life, according to the world, do not have to intersect.
Can you think of areas in the news recently that show the problem with keeping science and reason separate from religion and morality? (Hint – some hot topics are mentioned at the end of this lesson).
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Since the world considers it unnecessary to link science and reason with religion and morality, does that mean that God’s Word is untrue? Can the Creator of the sciences fashion immoral uses for his work? Of course not, but the world isn’t concerned with truth, it would prefer to label God’s Word as “inapplicable” and “irrelevant.”
“Why, I’m not like that!” you might say. “I faithfully attend church, tithe, and even teach Sunday school. My worldview is obviously biblical.”
The Barna Research Group conducted a national survey of adults and concluded that only 4 percent of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making. The survey also discovered that 9 percent of born again Christians have such a perspective on life . . . and in a nationwide survey of senior pastors only half of the country’s Protestant pastors have a biblical worldview.
Kerby Anderson, Worldview and Truth, Probe Ministries
A manipulator of statistics might try and say that born-again Christians are twice as likely to have a biblical worldview, but the truth is still only 9 percent have this understanding – only about 1 in 10! Even more disheartening is that only half of the senior pastors of American Protestant churches have a biblical worldview (see the eight questions below to understand what Barna uses as a gage of a ‘biblical world view’). No wonder the view from the pews is murky.
Actually knowing what you believe is, unfortunately, rare. It is also critical, which is why Discipleship 101 is foundational. The Lord has, I believe, directed the course of study, ordered the lessons, injected his hand in the timing, and inspired the leadership of the church to move in this direction. After all, “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.” Proverbs 21:1
The Church’s Mission – Your Mission!
Given the world’s preference for disassociating faith and reason, what is the mission of the church? Many churches spell it out this way – to prepare for Christ's return in five ways: prayer, bible study, worship, fellowship, and evangelism. Those five basics are all good things, but are they what we are we saved for? Aren’t all those things are inward-focused? Even evangelism is usually selfishly meant to build up church numbers. Are we only saved from sin, what some caustically call “fire insurance?” If that is all we come to Christ for, what good does that do the rest of the world? How does that fit with the two greatest commands – to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as our self? (Matthew 22:35-40) What does our personal salvation do for the culture all around us? Why did Jesus tell his disciples, in his last words before he left earth, to go into the entire world and make disciples (not simply seeking salvations) of all nations? (Matthew 28:19-20)
That is why Chuck Colson has said:
“We are not only saved FROM sin, we are also saved TO something – to the task of cultivating God's creation. Genesis teaches that on the first five days, God Himself did the work of creating. But on the sixth day, he made human beings in his image to carry on His work – to develop the raw materials of the world He had created.
“This is the ‘cultural commission,’ and it is just as binding as the ‘great commission.’ It means our faith is intended to encompass every part of life, every sphere of work, every aspect of the world. In short, our faith must be a complete WORLDview, the basic set of beliefs that function as a grid or glasses determining how we see all reality. If God is creator and sovereign over everything, as we confess He is, then everything finds its identity and meaning in relationship to Him--not only our spiritual life but also our work, politics, science, education, and the arts.
“We are saved to DO the gospel.”
The “great commission” of Matthew 28 is to actually make disciples, apprentices of Jesus, who love the Lord with all their hearts, minds, souls, and spirits, and who then are able to love the world like themselves to achieve the cultural commission.
The “cultural commission” teaches us to bring the redemption Jesus earned to the entire world, refreshing it and preparing it for the Messiah’s final return. This means bringing Jesus’ redemptive work, the actual here-and-now kingdom of heaven, to our schools, our neighborhoods, our cities and towns, our art, our music, the sciences, our city halls, our local and national governments, our judges and businesses – everywhere our feet trod!
The church’s mission then is to fulfill two biblical commissions: the great commission and the cultural commission.
Can you see yourself stepping out in this world to make a difference? Doing
something God has gifted you especially for to “love your neighbor”? Is there
anything you feel is keeping you back from this? Pray that God would make it
clear to you, and ask your fellow apprentices and mentors to pray also.
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An Impossible Task?
We are to be leaven (yeast) in this world. Leaven is a very small amount of living reactive organic material added to the whole batch of dough. It is never a majority, but it has incredible power to alter the state of the whole! “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” (Galatians 5:9) Leaven reacts with the dough and brings life to the flat boring mix, creating air, fluffiness and buoyancy.
So if only 1 in 10 believers and half of protestant pastors have a strong and effective biblical worldview capable of fulfilling the great commission and cultural commission, how can that small amount of “leaven” achieve Jesus’ work in this world?
It begins in the heart of every single believer. It begins with you!
For several years, The Barna Group has been tracking how many people possess a "biblical worldview." The organization defines such a life perspective on the basis of several questions about religious beliefs. In order to possess a healthy biblical worldview, you must believe that:
1. absolute moral truth exists;
2. the source of moral truth is the Bible;
3. the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches
4. eternal spiritual salvation cannot be earned;
5. Jesus lived a sinless life on earth;
6. every person has a responsibility to share their religious beliefs with others;
7. Satan is a living force, not just a symbol of evil
8. God is the all-knowing, all-powerful maker of the universe who still rules that
creation today.
Do these statements sound extreme? Unbiblical? Denominationally partisan? Exclusionary? The world thinks so, but Jesus’ apprentices do not.
The Worldview Grid – Four Questions That Give Meaning to Life
Attached below is a simple grid detailing four seminal questions, the answers to which will give meaning and direction in your life, and help you to gage the worldview of others you meet. Some poke fun at those seeking the meaning to life, conjuring up images of a weary climber navigating all the way to the mountain peak only to find a skinny, robed, bearded wise man pensively sitting cross-legged and waiting at the summit with all the answers to life’s questions.
Well that old sage doesn’t have all the answers; finding them begins by answering these four fundamental worldview questions:
1. Where did I come from?
2. What is wrong with the world?
3. What is the solution?
4. What is my purpose and future?
The Biblical worldview answers below are compared with popular secular beliefs as well as other religions that many in the world adhere to.
The next six lessons bring the answers to these fundamental questions into focus. At a minimum, new believers and their mentors need to navigate these next six lessons to lay a foundation that over 90 percent of believers in Jesus do not have. We must have a biblical worldview if we are to consider ourselves apprentices, disciples of Jesus.
Faith and Reason – Partners For Life!
Consider the following questions, and tell if the correct answers lie in science and reason alone, or if faith and morality need to weigh in for a just judgment?
- Can we solve the ethical dilemma of human cloning via science alone?
- Can we finally end the decades-old debate about abortion with simple reason, law and logic?
- Should a parent have the right to punish his/her child in the grocery store by spanking them without fear of being arrested?
- Can the failure of Wall Street bankers to fully disclose risky investments that partially resulted in the stock market crash of 2008 be solved with new laws alone?
- Is a marriage adequately defined only by a law? By a judge? By the Supreme Court?
Understanding how the bible fits into everyday life is critical to bringing the world back into alignment, as much as we can, with the original intentions of God’s creation. The amazing thing is, the biblical worldview makes sense! It’s the only worldview that properly answers all of the difficult questions of life. It is good for more than answering bible questions; it can be used to answer all of life’s questions, just as we have shown in the few hot-button issues above.
Worldview Grid – Download and test your understanding.
See you in Lesson #1!
[Note – This lesson can be downloaded in PDF format for printing or sharing]
