In the account of Jesus healing a blind man in Mark 8:24, the man saw men as trees walking. This prompted Jesus to touch his eyes again in order to restore his vision completely. This short blog is about seeing the world in a proper way. One result of the fall is the blindness of men’s spiritual eyes. Like the blind man, the fallen worldview sees things not as they are. The Master’s touch is required….
One’s fundamental belief or worldview will determine their stance on issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, the origins of life, and even what their children watch on television. It is no small thing when dealing with presuppositions. At the risk of overusing an illustration, imagine one’s worldview as being glasses. By wearing these glasses, one sees the world through the lenses of these glasses. If the lenses are opaque or distorting, then one’s view of reality is obscure or distorted. People then will live and interact in the world based upon the lenses they see the world through. The faulty logic, misperceptions, and contradictions that people hold are due to the lenses they see reality through. There are a lot of faulty lenses. One needs a coherent worldview to truly interact with reality as it is.
James Sire has written on the subject of Worldviews in his books, The Universe Next Door and Naming the Elephant. I highly recommend these works. He outlines 7 questions a worldview needs to answer.
- What is prime reality?
- What is the nature of external reality (the world around us)?
- What is a human being?
- What happens to a person at death?
- Why is it possible to know anything at all?
- How do we know what is right and what is wrong?
- What is the meaning of human history?
These questions, Sire notes, can best be answered through the Theistic Christian Worldview. Theology Proper is the study of God. To know ourselves and the world one must first and most basically know and fear God. The “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). The Christian worldview is the correct lens to view reality. When a theistic, Christian theology is the foundation of belief, moral issues have an objective point of reference. There is a solid accountability of the pre-conditions of life, logic, reason, morality, and science. There is a rational understanding and appreciation of beauty, art and poetry. There are definable parameters of sex, gender, marriage, and social relationships that are in harmony with nature and human conscience and biology. Without a Christian worldview one is at the mercy of subjective and existential whims of powerful inner and outward evils. To define evil is even impossible on an objective level without God.
How does one obtain this worldview? Is it captured a seminary or in church attendance? Well, the concept can certainly be taught and understood in the classroom or through books. In fact, there are millions of people who embrace pieces of the Christian theology that are not Christian. Actually Trump nationalism is often equated with the Christian faith. Trump nationalism, or any nationalism, is not the Christian worldview at all. The Christian worldview looks for a greater King, a far away and heavenly country. Christian are elect exiles, pilgrims in the earth. The Christian worldview is obtained not through identification of a political party or religious group. Christian theology as a worldview in its most pure and transforming sense is actually a supernatural act of regeneration by God. Jesus said, “Except a man be born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). When this transformation happens, it is akin to someone turning the lights on in a dark room, or the sun rising upon a dark world, or the blind seeing with new eyes or the deaf hearing with new ears. It is nothing less that dramatic.
This transformation into the kingdom of light will also extract a heavy toll. Because now that one has been transformed, they will be hated because they have adopted the policies of the King of Heaven. Jesus is the embodiment of the Christian worldview and the world hated Him. The hatred was so great that the world crucified Him. He said the same hatred would be show to His followers. If your worldview seeks to cuddle up with and be accepted by the ideology of the day, then you are not on the straight path. You have strayed from the narrow way.
In closing, there is no secret there are those in great power and influence that would shape a population’s worldview. Such influencing platforms such as television, social media, and the entertainment industries are overtly constructing a generation’s suppositions. It is being done through algorithms, popularity cults and the spewing forth of ideologies through Tik Tok, Twitter and YouTube. As an older generation would say, “That stuff will rot your brain”. My question to you is, do you see the world through the lens of Theology or through what you think is right? Because what you think is right is the product of a complex web of environment, entertainment, biology, false systems, limited knowledge, popularity cults and self-preservation/lusts. May the Master touch our eyes to see properly.
Sowers Pouch 