What Is A Christian Worldview?

What is a Christian worldview? Why is it even important to know about? Should every Christian hold a biblical worldview?

A Worldview

Everybody actually has a worldview. It depends on how they view the world through their presuppositions. Every one of us have presuppositions, whether we realize it or not and we tend to use our presuppositions as lens by which we look at the world and society. In today’s culture, worldviews are primarily shaped through the media, education, the Internet, books, movies or any other source of media that’s available in this technologically advances world. Our view of the world is also shaped by our family setting and our culture. Some have simply absorbed what they see and hear and accept that as being true. You and I have worldview but we may see the world through different lenses based upon what we believe. We even make decisions based upon the view we hold too.

A Secular Worldview

Worldly viewpoints, which are held by most who are not believers, don’t think much past this life. They are only preoccupied with their immediate families, making as much money as possible. Most see life as events that just happen with no significant meaning behind them because life is just a series of events that occur in random order and that even life itself was a product of blind chance or accidental causes. There is no real purpose beyond “eat, drink, and be merry” and working for the weekend. This breeds humanism, moral relativism, existentialism, pragmatism, and utopianism.

A Christian Worldview

A Christian’s worldview is considered a part of Christian apologetics and is designed to equip people to think and live with a consistent and cohesive Biblical worldview despite the way the world looks at things. A Christian worldview knows that God exists (Heb. 11:6) and that He created everything that exists (Gen.1:1), all things are held together by Him (Col. 1:17), the Bible is God’s divinely inspired Word, (2 Tim. 3:16), that Jesus came to earth and lived in the human body (Col. 1:19), that mankind has chosen to rebel against God and that act of disobedience brought sin and by sin, death entered the world (Rom. 5:12-14; 6:23), and finally that there are not many paths to God but Jesus Christ is the only way to have eternal life (Acts 16:30-31) and have our sins forgiven (Acts 4:10-12).

Differences in Worldviews

When Christians and non-believers look at the world, they see things from a different perspective. An example would be when two people hear about an abortion. Most believers will see the tragedy in the killing of the unborn and understand that, biblically, it is murder. Most who are not Christians will see abortion as an alternative or a choice that a mother can make. One sees it as clearly wrong while the other sees abortion as a means to end to the inconvenience of having a baby around. They don’t see abortion coming as a result of having premarital sex or sex outside of marriage. The views are as different as night and day.

Conclusion

No matter what worldview you hold to, every one of us will have to stand before God someday (Rev 20:12-15). Jesus warned that “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak” (Matt 12:36) and it will be “by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt 12:37). Paul reminds us that “each of us will give an account of himself to God” (Rom 14:12) and after our appointed day of death, the judgment comes (Heb 9:27). The fact is “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2nd Cor 5:10) and we shouldn’t be concerned with how much non-believers insult us because we receive God’s blessing when they hate us, despise us, and lie about us for our belief in Christ (Matt 5:10-12). Christians can take comfort in the fact that “they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (1st Pet 4:5) and so there is no need to “fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28). These beliefs are also what we call a Christian worldview.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.