Freedom is Good News Part 189

“The worldview of a Christian” is the topic at which we have been looking.  And within that framework we began a study of the doctrine of the resurrection.  Think about it this way; if there is no resurrection of the dead, then all we have to live for is this physical life.  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:35, puts it this way, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” 

It was several years back that I first encountered this term “worldview” and it was used with the idea that there are only two differing worldviews; one being ‘the Christian worldview’ and the other called ‘the secular worldview’.  It took me some time to understand what was meant by these two terms (I guess I’m a little slow sometimes) but I came to see that a person must see the world either from a biblical standpoint or from a worldly standpoint.

The bible, as we have seen, speaks of a resurrection of the dead; the secular view has no such concept.  The bible speaks of a God who is merciful and gracious and gave His only begotten Son to save us from death; the secular view has no such concept.  The bible tells us that we can be right with God through the righteousness of His Son; the secular knows of no such idea.  The bible tells us that God desires to have a relationship with those whom He has created; but alas we find no such thing in the secular view.

Let me state this emphatically: we have a book that tells us exactly what the creator God has for us and what He wants for us.  We may turn away from that and look to the societies and civilizations we have built that offer us no hope beyond the physical life we are living.  I guess I‘m going to choose the life and hope that God offers.

That is a very rudimentary explanation of the two worldviews we have to choose from,

Oh!  Now there’s an interesting word to consider, “choose”.  God does give us a choice in this process.  He is the author of freedom and we are free to choose how we will live. 

Kind of like Adam and Eve had a choice!  They could eat from the tree of life or eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  They made a very wrong choice and we sit here six thousand years later blaming God for the mess we are in!! 

Speaking of choices, the bible is filled with examples of the choices people have made over the centuries:  Noah had a choice to build a boat so as to be the savior of mankind (kind of sounds like he was a type of Jesus Christ).  Abraham had a choice to “Leave Your country, your people and your father’s household and come to the land I will show you.” (Gen. 12:1) (Hmmm … sounds like he was a type of Jesus Christ who left His Father’s household in heaven to come to earth).  Moses had a choice to go to Egypt and rescue the nation of Israel (yeah, sounds like Jesus Christ who came to the land of sin and redeemed the people that God would choose).  God shows us, in His word, many types.

We could go on for a while considering God’s messengers and the choices they made but perhaps we’ll do that next time.