Thinking About Biblical Worldview

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Thinking About Biblical Worldview

• Michael Goheen
• IDIS 102, TWU 2007

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Popularity of Term Worldview

• Popularity of Biblical worldview today among
  evangelicals
• Response to comprehensive and powerful modern
  humanist worldview
• Establish a solid foundation for vigorous
  cultural engagement including scholarship
• Retrieve gospel from values category

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Fact/Value Dichotomy
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Starting point Gospel of Kingdom

• Jesus announces that the kingdom has come (Mark
  1.15-16)
• God is acting in power and love through Jesus
  and by the Spirit to restore all of human life
  and all of the creation to again live under Gods
  loving rule.

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This announcement assumes

• Good creation (Creation)
• Messed up by sin (Sin)
• God is acting to restore creation to again be
  what it was meant to be (Restoration)
• Battle for whole creation between power of sin
  and power of Spirit (Antithesis)

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Illustration

• Healthy child
• Deformed by disease
• Process of healing
• Struggle between disease and healing power

• Good creation
• Deformed by human sin
• Restoration
• Struggle between evil and Gods healing power

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Three Simultaneous Lenses

• Creation How was world meant to be?
• Sin How has the human rebellion perverted it?
• Restoration How is God restoring it?

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Creation How was it meant to be?

• Creation ordered by Gods word
• All of human life
• All of non-human creation

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Divine and human wisdom

• Divine wisdom Way God orders creation
• Human wisdom Conforming ourselves to that order
• Wisdom is wrought into the constitution of the
  universe so that human wisdom is ethical
  conformity to Gods creation (Fleming).
• Kosmos the world held a divine order and
  therefore wisdom was fitting oneself into this
  divine order. (Gladigow).

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Creation How was it meant to be?

• Creation ordered by Gods word
• All of human life
• All of non-human creation
• Humanity as image of God
• Made to know and love God
• Made to serve and reflect God
• Cultural development
• Very good

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Sin How has human rebellion perverted it

• Power that twists and distorts all of human life
  (God, each other, nature)
• Sin and its effects

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Sin and Its Effects

• Forms of sin (greed, lying, etc.)
• Results of sin (sickness, pain etc.)
• Death
• Satan, powers of darkness

SIN
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Sin How has human rebellion perverted it

• Power that twists and distorts all of human life
  (God, each other, nature)
• Sin and its effects
• Idolatry
• . . . all sin is an expression of the basic sin
  of idolatry, of putting something else in the
  place of God. (Paul Marshall)

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Sin as idolatry
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Sin How has human rebellion perverted it

• Power that twists and distorts all of human life
  (God, each other, nature)
• Sin and its effects
• Idolatry
• Affects all of non-human creation

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Restoration How is God restoring it?

• While justly angry God did not turn his back on
  a world bent on destruction he turned his face
  toward it in love. With patience and tender care
  he set out on the long road of redemption to
  reclaim the lost as his people and the world as
  his kingdom (Contemporary Testimony,19)

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Redemption

• Redemption flows from love of God
• Redemption is restorative
• Redemption is comprehensive
• Long road of redemption

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Long Road of Redemption

• Israel chosen to model restoration of human life
  vs. idolatry of nations
• Jesus reveals in his life, deeds, and words Gods
  restoration
• Cross Battle and victory for creation
• Resurrection Beginning of renewal
• Church called to make known Gods restoration
• Christs return Restoration complete!

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Design-Directing power
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Clash of Kingdoms
Antithesis
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Which ruler will you serve?

• Scholarship and university education Part of
  creation
• Battle between idolatry and Gods kingdom
• Default Idolatry of our culture
• Choose this day whom you will serve!
• No one can be a loyal servant to two masters.
  Either you will hate the one and love the other,
  or you will be devoted to the one and despise the
  other. You cannot faithful serve both God and
  _____. (Jesus, Matthew 6.24)