Every person has a worldview that has been shaped by a myriad of factors both consciously and subconsciously. A worldview is simply a term used to describe the way one looks at the world. It is important to be aware of your worldview and to examine it to see if it lines up with the truth. Many have had their worldview shaped for them by outside influences such as media, entertainment, authority figures, family, church, education, and multiple other influences. However, it is important for a person to examine ways of thinking to see if it is something that is really true and good and to realign one’s thinking accordingly.
A good worldview requires healthy thinking
Christians often become enclosed into a way of thinking that has been given to them by authority, education, family, church, or Christian books and media. This has caused believers to blindly trust what is told to them by these mediums instead of learning how to think truly for themselves. One should trust authority because they speak the truth and not because they are known as an authority. A Christian ought to be equipped to know for himself if something is true and believe it because it’s true rather than it is what has always been taught to him.
We must keep in mind that each of us has been given the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth and that we can have a spiritual understanding that acknowledges something to be true. However, we cannot rely on that alone and starve our minds of knowledge of the truth. While we can perceive truth in our spirit, we also need to exercise our minds to know the truth and to see the world by that truth, thereby having a Christian worldview.
Many have taught that a Christian worldview is adhering to some codified standard of how Christians should think as established by the majority of the Church thinking a certain way about the world. This is not the definition of a Christian worldview. In fact, the term has almost been completely lost to this definition and at times use of the term “Biblical Worldview” may be better served.
A healthy worldview is built on truth
A Christian, like anyone else, ought to desire to have a worldview that is congruent with what really is true. This means not only learning Scripture for ourselves, but also learning about the world. Learn about the nation, governments, philosophy, ecology, business, etc. Do not be afraid of “secular” sources. A Christian does not need to absorb the perspective of the author or newscaster read or listened to but to look at the information acquired through a perspective of truth.
While the Bible is true in everything it covers, it does not cover all things. We as Christians need to learn more about the world than just what we learn from Scripture and see it through the eyes of the Lord who lives in us. His Spirit guides us to see the truth and beyond every lie is a truth. Behind every distortion of the truth, is a real truth. Find it. Go after it. Reveal it for others to see. Too often we condemn the distortion without regard for the truth. We expect people who have not connected with the Truth not to have any distortions of truth, and yet even we who know the Truth do not always see clearly without distortion or corruption. Even we have to renew our minds.
Christians need to have a godly perspective of the world and to see and reveal the truth that is there in all things. We cannot keep it safe in our communities for only our fellow Christians to know, we must reveal the glory of God by helping people see a good truth whether the matter is political, governmental, natural, scientific, educational, or spiritual.
The nuts and bolts of a worldview
In developing a worldview we must remember that it will always be developing, adapting, and evolving to encompass more and more truth as we learn it. There has to be room for revision and removal of inaccurate perspectives as we grow in truth and knowledge. One needs to measure all things that makeup one’s worldview by three tests of truth.
First does the thing line up philosophically as true. This is ethereal, but the important level of examining a worldview. Is it logical? Is it true? Is it right? Is it consistent with other known truths?
Secondly, can it be communicated rationally or is it too ethereal and abstract to even be able to express? If the former move on to the third test, if the later there needs to be some work done in the level of the first test.
Thirdly, is it practicable? Does it work in the real world? Can it be pulled out of the ethereal, communicated, and implemented as truth? If not then go back to test one, because most likely there is a problem there.
People often think only in the third level even when it violates the first. For example, someone may argue that they have a need for food, therefore, they have a right to the food others have to fulfill their hunger. This way of thinking quickly leads to either stealing or communism as it violates the first level and only reasons in the third level.
The practicality of a worldview
One would first need to think about whether it is right for one person to take from another person what does not belong to them or if someone has a right to what they did not work to earn. Because if stealing is wrong in the first level it is still wrong at the practical level and the need does not overcome the morality problem. But when we only think according to the third level we give no thought to ethics or truth, but to personal need and survival irrespective of truth and righteousness.
However, to respond to a person’s practical need by philosophizing on the first level without a solution in the third can be just as wrong. The point is if we do not learn to think about these things with a desire for what is true and right we remain at a loss to do anything to contribute to the world we live in. To not learn to think for ourselves and to care about thinking rightly leaves us susceptible to others thinking for us which will eventually if not instantly become problematic for our own practical living.
Therefore, we must become adept at thinking. We must be consciously and truthfully developing our own worldview. While we need to soak up the knowledge we must sharpen our perspective of that knowledge or it will shape our perspective for us. Let us not be those who have people think for us, but let us be those who know how to think for ourselves and influence others towards the truth instead of being influenced by every wind that blows our direction.
