A Biblical World View

I am currently taking a class through my church called Strategic Life Assessment - sort of a "What is God calling you to do in your life?" sort of thing.  It is not that I am necessarily looking for another career, but I would be less than honest in admitting that at some point I would like to do something else and - frankly - I am reaching the point where my experience (and companies' willingness to pay for it) may be outpaced by my age.

In going through the second section last night, we got to speaking about Biblical world views.  Which hit me in the gut, oddly enough.  Because it is something that I have been feeling my way around the fringes of in my life for some time.

An example the instructor used:  At certain times of his life he had been "in transition"  (which in this day and age typically means "out of work").  His wife prayed for money.  He prayed for a job.  What does the Bible tell us to pray for?  "Our daily bread" - provision and faith in Him.  (Not that there is anything wrong with praying for either.  It is just not really what God was after).

A biblical world view, for those that do not know, is simply viewing the world through the lens of the Bible.  Instead of having our attitudes and actions informed by something else - the culture, our friends, our philosophy - we inform them based on what God's Word says.

(Yes, by default this is meant to apply primarily to Christians.  As C.S. Lewis said, if  you are reading the Bible and do not believe it is as if you are reading someone else's love letters.  You have neither the context nor the relationship to make sense of them).

The point of our discussion last night was that for most Christians, this is simply not something that they do.  We have become "cultural Christians" (my words), adapting the Bible to fit the culture norms that we find ourselves in rather than being Christians and adapting the culture to the Bible. Lest you think that this is a Conservative or Liberal thing, it is neither.  I suspect (C.S. Lewis did the same) that it would seem somewhat "old fashioned" and yet somehow "liberated" at the same time:  the man or woman who can truly love all, while not loving their sins or actively supporting the loved ones in them.

I confess that it is a hard thing for me to think in this light.  I have let myself become too marinated in the culture that I live, the barnacles of cultures clinging to my mind having attached themselves firmly to it.  It is an upset the applecart sort of moment:  to make such a change is to drastically move back to a source of truth - an absolute - rather than founder in the ever rotating rays of the non-absolute truths of our culture.

But I have to.  If I truly sit down and think about it, I have lost my way more deeply than I care to admit.  And (to quote Lewis one more time), if you find yourself going the wrong direction the quickest way to fix it is turn around.