WHAT IS YOUR WORLDVIEW?

Your worldview determines how you live. The atheist has a world view that God doesn’t exist so it is up to man to make this world utopia by his own efforts.

The Christian worldview acknowledges God as the creator and sustainer of life and that he is part of our everyday existence. That Jesus is the son of God and salvation is only through him.

I find that most Christians don’t have a New Testament worldview. They have one drawing from four different sources.

The first is the Old Testament. I know that the Ten Commandments are the basis of our worldview, but when it comes to how we live we all too often appeal to Old Testament law that negates New Testament grace.

An example is tithing. Several OT texts are referred to as justification for the practice of tithing. “Would you rob God” “bring all the tithes into the storehouse” etc. They then justify spurious interpretations of New Testament text to justify OT verses.

In all this they ignore the fact that the concept of tithing is not mentioned once in the New Testament in regards to the giving by the saints.

Second, is the New Testament of grace. They use the general concepts of salvation by grace and then impose all sorts of law keeping rules.

Third is tradition. Having made a study of the New Testament Church and its leadership, my research has thrown up the idea that if scripture conflicts with tradition, then the scripture is wrong. For example, the qualification for Elders in Timothy is the scripture that says what the qualification is for the appointment of ‘a pastor’ from out of town.

Fourth, much of our worldview is taken from the world. Greed is good, bigger is better, charismatic leadership is best, God’s main business is to make you rich, we have to adopt worldly principles to stay abreast of things and so on.

With such a mish mash of ideas, it is no wonder that too many Christians don’t know what they believe or the fact that they believe whatever is the latest fad.

The fact that we have so many denominations is an indication that we attract those people who want to subscribe to whatever fad we peddle. The overarching worldview that Jesus Christ is lord and is to be followed and obeyed has faded into the background.

We would rather follow the tongues movement, the name it and claim it movement, the third wave movement; the holiness movement; the liturgical movement; the God wants me rich movement; the institutional church movement; the social gospel movement; but never God’s movement. You know, take up your cross and follow me.

A divided church cannot stand. We are as divided as we can be with 35,000 denominations. How do we expect to do what the New Testament Church did and that was to change the world.