I’ve been doing some thinking about—or rather some reflecting on—just how one develops a worldview. And since my own “coming out” as a Christian almost a decade ago, I now ask myself how my own Christian worldview has developed. What follows are just a few random ideas strung together as a kind of exploration of how I think it has come about in my own case and how it might come about in the case of others.
Firstly, one must take for granted that there is a God and that He is described both in His creation and in the Bible (or rather, He describes Himself, His attributes, His character and His plans and purposes, in the Bible). Eventually, one must come to a settled conclusion about this. I absolutely believe this settled conclusion must admit the following: that God’s existence is self-proving and self-evident. God cannot be “proven” by recourse to any other authority but Himself alone. This is huge—especially in a Post-Modern, Post-Christian Neo-Pagan, syncretistic society such as ours. To deviate from this position is, inevitably, to lead to spiritual confusion if not ruin. I can’t stress this point too strongly; read the history of God’s OT people for authentication! A Christian worldview begins and ends with God’s sovereignty, self-existence and self-authentication. To go anywhere else (such as the sciences) to prove the existence of God is to posit a higher authority than God and so is self-defeating.
In view of what we have just said, the obvious must also be true and fundamental, that God’s revelation of Himself can only be understood by us through our faith and faith alone. We do not believe in God because we can prove He exists. We prove He exists (apologetics) because we believe He does (exist).
Secondly, one must be grounded in God’s Word. And by that I mean the Bible, pure and simple. This second point is really just an extension of the first point: if God is sovereign, then so must be His Word. This is so because there can be no difference between God's truth and His being. God's truth can only be an expression of who God truly and surely is. Therefore the Bible is, like God Himself, self-authenticating and self-confirming. There is no other standard by or to which it may be compared or confirmed. Yet some argue that there is much in the Bible that is difficult to understand or that flies in the face of reality (usually as defined by modern science). But any parts of the Bible which we as individuals are unable to understand or that seem to be contradictory or impossible are simply parts that have not been revealed to us either because of our own ignorance and sin or because the sovereign God has, for His own inscrutable reasons, willed not to reveal those parts to us until such a time as He sees fit. For instance, many people today cannot come to accept many of the miracles of God described in the Bible. One example that comes to mind is the turning back of the shadow on the stairs in King Hezekiah's palace (2 Kings 20:9-11) which modern people consider to be impossible because it contravenes several physical laws of the universe. Yet Christians must see the turning back of the shadow as a thing perfectly possible for a sovereign God, whether we completely understand it or not. And why should we expect to understand everything there is to know about this sovereign God? If we understood everything about Him, we would be standing in His place: exactly the sin of Lucifer, who wanted to take the place of God in His arrogance and pride!
Yet even if we seek to confirm the Bible by physics, archaeology, history or the like, we are in effect admitting there is a secondary source of information which is equal to, on a par with, the Bible itself. Even though we use such "evidence" to prove the validity of the bible, in doing so, we are acknowledging that the Bible is not supreme in its self-revelation and that another source is just as important as the Bible. This is in effect to destroy the supremacy of the Bible or at least to cast doubt upon the truthfulness of its revelation. No, either we believe in the ultimate authority and sufficiency of the Bible or we do not. There is no middle ground! It is either sola Scriptura or it is nothing.
But don’t get hung up on which is the “right” version of the Bible at this point. (However, please take my advice on this and stick to essentially word-for-word translations such as the New American Standard Bible (NASB), the English Standard Version (ESV), or even the King James Version (KJV, AV). The Bible is just what it purports to be—God’s Word. And it is a living Word, not dead. If God lives eternally, then so must His Word, which is a reflection of God’s very being. The Bible must become our own personal living word, relevant for our every need. Saturate yourself with it. But here it is wise to proceed with some caution. How are we to interpret God's Word and so understand it rightly? Is it up to each individual, unassisted, to determine for him or herself what is the truth of Scripture alone? This could easily lead to what one writer has called Solo Scriptura which is a private interpretation. For more on this please read this article (and read the third set of comments next).
Thirdly, read Christian historical documents and creeds (such as the Westminster Confession of Faith for instance) as well as a good history of the Church.
Fourthly, read from the related works and classics from men such as Josephus and Philo. The works of these men are largely contemporaneous with the NT accounts and letters and will tend to confirm what the Bible states as fact (yet be cautioned by our previous remarks regarding biblical authority and sufficiency).
Fifthly, read various theologians and their works of Systematic Theology. I recommend the works of such men (in no particular order of precedence or importance) as John Calvin, especially his “Institutes” and other Reformers, John Murray, the Hodges, Robert Reymond, Bruce Demerest, DA Carson, the Puritans, Thomas Boston, J. Greshem Machen, Wayne Grudem, JM Boice and so on. This is just a small taste of the riches that await.
Sixthly, begin to study philosophy and logic. These disciplines will teach you how to think critically so as not to be easily influenced or persuaded by competing ideas.
Seventhly, learn Greek and Hebrew so that you can read the Bible in the original languages.
And lastly: associate with godly people. Take fellowship with those who are also Christian and with whom you can explore your Christian values and ideas in an atmosphere of understanding, support and encouragement. At the same time avoid religious or theological discussions with those who are not equal to the task or who, worse, are not even Christian. To do this is to invite syncretism into your life and to potentially create confusion and uncertainty which are the two qualities you are trying to eradicate in the first place.
In this regard, imperative to keep in mind are the words of the apostle Paul: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:2).
If you are diligent in your pursuit, these several starting tips should serve you well.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Wednesday 30 July 2008
Tuesday 22 July 2008
Love of the World?
I’ve recently been meditating on 1 John2:15-16 in the context of how Christians should “be” in the world. This is partly due to the sermon preached for my little congregation last Lord’s Day.
As I meditated on God’s Word I observed that while we must live disciplined lives, repudiating what we know to be wrong and living out what we know to be right, we must also walk with caution between the Law and Grace. I think that we must be prudent in what we consider evil and worthy of rejection and what is in fact good and a blessing for us as we sojourn through this essentially foreign land we call earth or the world.
In the verses from 1 John 2, it is easy to hear that we must reject the world—indeed isn’t that what John forthrightly tells us: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world” (1 John 15a)? So far, no problem. But here we must be careful to understand what exactly John is referring to when he speaks of the world. So we read in verse 16 that by “the world” (or more exactly the "things of the world") John really means or intends certain characteristics: the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. These are the things we must be on guard against, not the world as part of God’s creation, fallen though it certainly is.
This “love of the world” we must reject or wake up to is illustrated well by the reaction of those neighbours and other contemporaries of Noah after he had been instructed by God that the earth—the world—was about to be destroyed by a flood (Gen. 6:13). We read in Matthew, “in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away” (Matt. 24:38-39). Now “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” are not in themselves sinful and do not act as examples of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. It was the unthinking reaction to Noah and the looming reality of which he was the herald that illustrates the attitude of those who love the world. The description of Noah’s friends and contemporaries illustrates a kind of dependant stupor. They were oblivious—they “did not understand”—what was about to befall them or the reasons for it. It illustrates the need for a shift in one’s conscious awareness, a paradigm shift of extreme magnitude. The friends of Noah were on "auto-pilot" and could not understand that they needed an "attitude adjustment."
And it is here we must tread lightly. Too often it is the world as such—that is, the physical, tangible, and touchable created place we call the earth or the world—that we are warned against as being evil and worthy of rejection, rather than those qualities found within it as a result of Adam’s sin and subsequent fall and the cursing of the earth/world by God as a penalty for such disobedience. It is easy to think that we must employ our powers of discipline to reject the world—and many of the pleasures it yet affords—in order to be “good” Christians. One problem with this is that if we are not more critical in our thinking, we could easily be slipping into a quasi-Gnostic dichotomy of “physical equals evil; spiritual equals good.” Therein lies the real danger. The earth (and our physical bodies which are part and parcel of the earth) has been given to us as the venue in which we are to work out our salvation (with fear and trembling, knowing the dangers) and so we must be ever mindful of the implications of this fact. God did not remove His people from the earth or her temptations, rather He has put us here and has purposefully left us here so that through being in the world, we may, following in Christ (John 17:13-19), overcome it for our good. That we are to be in this world is God's will for us. To reject wholesale the world He has given for our sanctification is to reject His will and good purpose for His sons and daughters.
The world, we must always remember, was created by God. It was created “good, very good.” And while it has been cursed as a result of sin, it is nevertheless the world created by God and will be the only world until after the Judgment and the emergence of the new (Rev. 21).
To reject the world as such is a mistake for it is not itself evil and we are still blessed by God as an aspect of common grace (Ecc. 5:18; Matt. 5:45) but it is rather the heart of each and every person who has not understood the Fundamental Reality behind all appearances that is the real problem and from it proceed all the evils we must be on guard against.
Soli Deo Gloria.
As I meditated on God’s Word I observed that while we must live disciplined lives, repudiating what we know to be wrong and living out what we know to be right, we must also walk with caution between the Law and Grace. I think that we must be prudent in what we consider evil and worthy of rejection and what is in fact good and a blessing for us as we sojourn through this essentially foreign land we call earth or the world.
In the verses from 1 John 2, it is easy to hear that we must reject the world—indeed isn’t that what John forthrightly tells us: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world” (1 John 15a)? So far, no problem. But here we must be careful to understand what exactly John is referring to when he speaks of the world. So we read in verse 16 that by “the world” (or more exactly the "things of the world") John really means or intends certain characteristics: the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. These are the things we must be on guard against, not the world as part of God’s creation, fallen though it certainly is.
This “love of the world” we must reject or wake up to is illustrated well by the reaction of those neighbours and other contemporaries of Noah after he had been instructed by God that the earth—the world—was about to be destroyed by a flood (Gen. 6:13). We read in Matthew, “in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away” (Matt. 24:38-39). Now “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” are not in themselves sinful and do not act as examples of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life. It was the unthinking reaction to Noah and the looming reality of which he was the herald that illustrates the attitude of those who love the world. The description of Noah’s friends and contemporaries illustrates a kind of dependant stupor. They were oblivious—they “did not understand”—what was about to befall them or the reasons for it. It illustrates the need for a shift in one’s conscious awareness, a paradigm shift of extreme magnitude. The friends of Noah were on "auto-pilot" and could not understand that they needed an "attitude adjustment."
And it is here we must tread lightly. Too often it is the world as such—that is, the physical, tangible, and touchable created place we call the earth or the world—that we are warned against as being evil and worthy of rejection, rather than those qualities found within it as a result of Adam’s sin and subsequent fall and the cursing of the earth/world by God as a penalty for such disobedience. It is easy to think that we must employ our powers of discipline to reject the world—and many of the pleasures it yet affords—in order to be “good” Christians. One problem with this is that if we are not more critical in our thinking, we could easily be slipping into a quasi-Gnostic dichotomy of “physical equals evil; spiritual equals good.” Therein lies the real danger. The earth (and our physical bodies which are part and parcel of the earth) has been given to us as the venue in which we are to work out our salvation (with fear and trembling, knowing the dangers) and so we must be ever mindful of the implications of this fact. God did not remove His people from the earth or her temptations, rather He has put us here and has purposefully left us here so that through being in the world, we may, following in Christ (John 17:13-19), overcome it for our good. That we are to be in this world is God's will for us. To reject wholesale the world He has given for our sanctification is to reject His will and good purpose for His sons and daughters.
The world, we must always remember, was created by God. It was created “good, very good.” And while it has been cursed as a result of sin, it is nevertheless the world created by God and will be the only world until after the Judgment and the emergence of the new (Rev. 21).
To reject the world as such is a mistake for it is not itself evil and we are still blessed by God as an aspect of common grace (Ecc. 5:18; Matt. 5:45) but it is rather the heart of each and every person who has not understood the Fundamental Reality behind all appearances that is the real problem and from it proceed all the evils we must be on guard against.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Saturday 19 July 2008
The Self-Revelation of God
Recuperating as I am from another physical ailment (sigh), I’ve been doing a lot of reading of late. Most recently has been Robert Reymond’s Systematic Theology, chapter six, p. 129, in which he discusses the various approaches apologists (Turretin, Hodge, Dabney and Berkhof et. al) have used to prove the existence of God; and how he considers all of them “unsound”, or at least incomplete and ultimately incapable of proof. Instead he says that evidence for God’s existence is self-proving and self-evident, (although obviously not to everyone). I concur.
I bring this up now, after reading a story from the TimesOnline regarding the latest heretical ideas exploding from the apostate minds of many from within Anglicanism/Episcopalianism.
It would seem from the article that the core problem facing Anglicanism is in fact the willful refusal of these people to accept the entire Bible as the Revealed Word of God (and as argued, for instance by men such as Reymond, not to mention the Apostle Paul, of course).
I’m not going to enter the fray as I am too far removed from the dialogue to add anything of importance or relevance. However, I use this article to add my own voice to support the traditional, Reformed view that God is self-existent, self-disclosing and self-revelatory.
God cannot be “proven” by recourse to any other authority but Himself alone. This is huge--especially in a Post-Modern, Post--Christian society. To deviate from this position is, inevitably, to lead to spiritual ruin (as is obvious to me in the case of the current state of the Anglican Communion in the west.) Remember, the watchword of the Reformation was—and still is—Sola Scriptura.
It seems that the defining issue facing the Anglican Communion is homosexuality, or more comprehensively, liberalism and the Normative Principle of Worship (NPR) as opposed to the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) of the Reformed tradition. Satan says, using the liberal branch (the apostate church) and the words of the Bishop of Armagh,
“Let us be clear on this. It has not yet been conclusively shown that for some males and some females homosexuality and homosexual acts are natural rather than unnatural. If such comes to be shown, it will be necessary to acknowledge the full implications of that new aspect of the truth, and that insight applied to establish and acknowledge what may be a new status for homosexual relationships within the life of the Church….It would be very strange if, with the same level of information about issues to do with homosexuality, we were not to incorporate that into our understanding of creation itself.”
This from the good bishop in spite of God's warning in Matthew that ""It is written, `MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD' " (Matt. 4:4).
In his world-view, the Bishop merely validates Paul’s analysis of the fallen human condition in Romans, chapters 1-3, which essentially describes the entire, complete and abiding condition of unregenerate humanity.
I cannot add anything to this argument which would not simply be comments on stupidity. Enough stupidity (and apostasy) has been expressed by Bishop Harper and his ilk within the Anglican Communion. To say more would be merely to guild the lily. Read what Bishop Harper has to say and decide for yourself.
Soli Deo Gloria.
I bring this up now, after reading a story from the TimesOnline regarding the latest heretical ideas exploding from the apostate minds of many from within Anglicanism/Episcopalianism.
It would seem from the article that the core problem facing Anglicanism is in fact the willful refusal of these people to accept the entire Bible as the Revealed Word of God (and as argued, for instance by men such as Reymond, not to mention the Apostle Paul, of course).
I’m not going to enter the fray as I am too far removed from the dialogue to add anything of importance or relevance. However, I use this article to add my own voice to support the traditional, Reformed view that God is self-existent, self-disclosing and self-revelatory.
God cannot be “proven” by recourse to any other authority but Himself alone. This is huge--especially in a Post-Modern, Post--Christian society. To deviate from this position is, inevitably, to lead to spiritual ruin (as is obvious to me in the case of the current state of the Anglican Communion in the west.) Remember, the watchword of the Reformation was—and still is—Sola Scriptura.
It seems that the defining issue facing the Anglican Communion is homosexuality, or more comprehensively, liberalism and the Normative Principle of Worship (NPR) as opposed to the Regulative Principle of Worship (RPW) of the Reformed tradition. Satan says, using the liberal branch (the apostate church) and the words of the Bishop of Armagh,
“Let us be clear on this. It has not yet been conclusively shown that for some males and some females homosexuality and homosexual acts are natural rather than unnatural. If such comes to be shown, it will be necessary to acknowledge the full implications of that new aspect of the truth, and that insight applied to establish and acknowledge what may be a new status for homosexual relationships within the life of the Church….It would be very strange if, with the same level of information about issues to do with homosexuality, we were not to incorporate that into our understanding of creation itself.”
This from the good bishop in spite of God's warning in Matthew that ""It is written, `MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD' " (Matt. 4:4).
In his world-view, the Bishop merely validates Paul’s analysis of the fallen human condition in Romans, chapters 1-3, which essentially describes the entire, complete and abiding condition of unregenerate humanity.
I cannot add anything to this argument which would not simply be comments on stupidity. Enough stupidity (and apostasy) has been expressed by Bishop Harper and his ilk within the Anglican Communion. To say more would be merely to guild the lily. Read what Bishop Harper has to say and decide for yourself.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Sunday 13 July 2008
This Pastor Has Guts
As I spend time recuperating from yet another health issue, I recieved the following as a circular letter from a relative and brother in Christ. It seems prayer still upsets some people. Please read....
When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the newSession of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
"Heavenly Father, We come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good' but that is exactly what we have done.
"We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
"We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
"We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of speech and expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
"Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"
Soli Deo Gloria
When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the newSession of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:
"Heavenly Father, We come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good' but that is exactly what we have done.
"We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.
"We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.
"We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of speech and expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.
"Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"
Soli Deo Gloria
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