Sifting Truth with a Biblical Worldview

Approximate Reading Time: 6 minutes

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Three people hear a news story about an oil spill in the ocean. Joe is a conspiracy theorist and suspects the U.S. government sank the boat to make prices rise. Sarah is an environmental activist and complains to her friend about the need for stricter regulations. Aaron doesn’t like negativity so he pulls out his phone to distract himself. The root of those different reactions is a vitally important, oft neglected part of our spiritual lives: a worldview.

A worldview is something that we rarely think about, yet all have one. Everything that we believe and experience is thanks to our worldview. But what is it, and why should we foster it?

When I baked for a wedding cake designer, I had to put flour through a fine-mesh sifter. Looking at a soft pile of flour, it first seemed like an unnecessary step. Yet it quickly became apparent how many impurities existed in something that, at first, seemed to be what I needed. Who knew so many hard clumps existed in one little cup of flour, just waiting to be baked into an unappetizing bite?

Summed up, our worldview simply determines what is real, filtering everything we reject as false so that we can determine what’s true. Like a flour sifter sorts out impurities, so our worldview uses our understanding of reality to determine our beliefs, values, and how we react to the world around us. It takes in what we experience, removes the things we know to be false, and lets us deal with the rest.

However, too often we let our worldview be influenced by the culture rather than the Bible. We let things through that seem completely harmless, but are incredibly dangerous to our spiritual lives.

What we believe about the big questions

There are a myriad of worldviews out there, each dictating how people experience the world. Let’s take two worldviews, Christian (C) and atheist (A), and see how they differ in understanding the “five big questions” about life.

Where does everything come from?

• C: The entire universe was purposely created by God through Jesus Christ (Genesis 1:1) who continues to uphold it (Hebrews 1:3).
• A: The existence and continuation of the universe is an accident caused by the Big Bang or a similarly spontaneous event.

Who are we? What is our “identity”?

• C: We find our purpose and meaning not in ourselves, but in Christ (1 Peter 2:9, Galatians 2:20). We are representatives of Christ (1 Peter 2:11-12).
• A: Our identities rest in how we and others think of ourselves. This can include our job, hobby, sexual preferences, political affiliation, parental status, or popularity with others.

What is our purpose in life?

• C: We are created to love and serve God (Deuteronomy 6:5, Ecclesiastes 12:13). We are called to live holy lives out of love for God, not worldly lives out of love for ourselves (2 Timothy 1:9)
• A: Pleasure is the ultimate goal of life. “Follow your heart,” “be your best self,” “do what makes you happy” all stem from the idea of pursuing the greatest pleasure.

How do we determine right and wrong?

• C: Right and wrong are determined by God’s character, which He has showed us in the Bible (1 Peter 1:16). Though we were given the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, our hearts are not the ultimate authority (Jeremiah 17:9).
• A: Morality and ethics are relative. What is wrong in one setting can be right in another. In the end we can only determine right and wrong, good and evil, by what the culture around us says. By and large, what doesn’t harm others can usually be seen as “not wrong.”

What happens when we die?

• C: At death we are judged for how we’ve violated God’s law and punished accordingly (Hebrews 9:27). Our only hope in escaping eternal damnation is in the righteousness given to us by Christ’s sacrifice (2 Corinthians 5:21).
• A: Absolutely nothing. Your existence simply ends.

One worldview sees purpose and intention in everything around us. The other sees us as cosmic accidents, trying to make the best of our existence for as long as we can. One isn’t inherently better based on its happier outlook, but the differences have a significant impact for our daily lives.

Part-time atheists

Most of us read those comparisons and cry “Yeah! The Christian one is the best!” However, what we say and what we do are often at odds with one another. This is where purposely fostering a Christian worldview is so important.

What do we do when faced with difficult decisions? Where does our worldview lead us when we are forced to choose between what’s right and what feels good? Faith and doubt? While we often idealize ourselves as standing firm no matter what, the reality is that our decisions are often indistinguishable from those whose worldview begins with “God doesn’t exist.”

Why do Christians become enslaved to pornography? Why do we yell at our kids? Why do we spend money on things in the hope of being satisfied? Those moments, and so many more, all boil down to one thing: our malformed worldview.

In those moments, we’re always seeking our own pleasure. No matter how destructive we know a choice will be, in that moment we are embracing the choice as desirable because our worldview isn’t rejecting it. We embrace the insanity of “yelling at my children will make me feel better” because we aren’t sifting out our own broken desires.

Setting our minds on things above

However, we aren’t bound to make those sinful decisions over and over again. By focusing our minds on Christ and embracing a biblically-sound worldview, those old desires start being pushed aside. We can find joy in living holy lives dedicated to God, knowing that this world isn’t our greatest source of pleasure.

Do not be conformed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God—what is good and well-pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

God is quite clear – we need to focus our minds on Him. Having a mind that follows the world is the antithesis of knowing and following the will of God (James 4:4). Thus it’s no surprise that when our greatest pursuit in life is happiness, we often fall into sin and despair.

A Christian worldview isn’t something that develops overnight. We are born incapable of pleasing God (Romans 3:10-12), and conversion doesn’t instantly purge us of our sinful thinking. The Holy Spirit is constantly working to make us more like Christ (Galatians 5:22-25), but it requires a willingness on our part to “be transformed.”

We can keep fighting Him to our own destruction, but we can never know true peace and joy if we’re trying to maintain Frankensteinian worldview that straddles “God is real and has a purpose for us” and “My goal in life is to be happy.” We must choose one – either we’re all accidents whose greatest achievement is our own happiness or God is real and our true purpose is beyond ourselves.

Do you not know that the one to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of that same one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? (Romans 6:16)