A Biblical Outlook on the World

Contributing Author: 2018 Trinity Alumni, Miss Sarah Grose

Most people do not have the honor and privilege of attending some form of Christian schooling in their lifetime. Consequently, most are not equipped with a biblical, or to go even farther, a correct biblical worldview. The severity of this issue goes even deeper when one realizes that most Christian, Bible teaching churches today do not teach about a proper, Christ-centered worldview. This world is a dark place that tries to dim the light of Christ whenever possible. As a believer, it is imperative that one has a solid working knowledge of both a correct biblical worldview and other worldviews prevalent in our society.

You may ask then, what is a biblical worldview? To start, a worldview, as defined by Jeff Myers in his text Understanding the Times, is “a pattern of ideas, beliefs, convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world.” Essentially Myers says, “your view of God determines your view of the world.” A biblical-based worldview is one that considers God first and foremost and then views the world from His point of view. It is founded upon scripture and truly understands that we are all sinners, and by the grace of God are we saved. Furthermore, He desires for everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Him. Our relationship with the Lord ultimately determines how we view and react to the things of this world.

During senior year at Trinity, students are taught this very thing as they go through a biblical worldview course, reading and studying Jeff Myers’ text “Understanding the Times” or UTT for short. This book is filled to the brim with page after page of an objective outlook on the major worldviews (as of 2016), but also the truth that the Christian worldview is the only correct worldview. Throughout the study, conversations and interactions guide students towards the understanding of who Jesus is and how only He should influence our worldview. A solid foundation of the Christian worldview and how we are to understand other worldviews based off of the Bible and a Christian worldview are thoroughly taught.

I was blessed to attend Christian school for all of my high school years, attending Trinity for three of those four years. I am still involved with the school through volunteer and substitute work. For me, my high school years were when I started to discover who I am in Christ and who He made me to be. I really grasped my faith as my own, and started to pursue a more genuine, service filled life towards the Lord, and an education at Trinity only solidified this. This Christ-centered education further helped to solidify who Christ is and how He affects my worldview. A big part in this furthering of my education and walk with the Lord was the senior-year Understanding the Times class.

Since high school graduation, I have embarked on numerous different ventures, really working towards finding out what the Lord has called me to do with my life. In all of these different ventures, I have experienced interactions with so many different people, most who do not know the Lord. The knowledge and understanding I have of other worldviews has made all the difference in conversations and even just personal understanding of who someone is and where they are coming from when they say the things they do. I have been able to easily recognize the heavy influence of new spirituality, secularism, humanism, and the big combination of the latter two, secular humanism, in our world today. I have talked to many people who have expressed that they think you can go find God wherever you please and that you don’t need to learn His word or honor His call to worship. Many believe that you can just feel God and that that is enough. It breaks my heart to talk those who have serious misconceptions about the Lord, who He is, and how you know Him.

All of these other worldviews lead to death, simply put. Every other worldview offers nothing of eternal value, they do not care about the souls of people, they only look at the here and now. They offer nothing other than this life; just what you get and do while you are on this earth. When you truly understand this serious matter, it should break your heart too. I see people for more than just who they are as a person; they are humans but each and every person has a soul. There is more to this life than just the here and now. As one of our pastors likes to say, “one out of every one person will die”, there is no getting around this fact. Can any other worldview but the Christian worldview offer anything of truth about what will happen to a person's soul after they die? The answer is no, and this affirmed to me that the Christian worldview is correct no matter what. When I know this and see people through this lens, all I want for them is to know Jesus. And that is one thing that Trinity definitely prepared me for.

All these reasons and more have made me that much more thankful and grateful for the education I’ve had and how it had Christ written all over it. Matthew Henry commented, “Whatever we have of this world in our hands, our care must be to keep it out of our hearts, lest it come between us and Christ.” I see this as a central point in the topic of worldview. Proverbs 4:23 warns us to, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” What we are feeding ourselves of this world will affect our worldview and we must be cautious to keep other views from our hearts for that’s when problems will arise. What knowledge and understanding we have of the Lord that is in our hearts will be what comes out of our mouths for, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).