“One of the pressing needs of Christians today is a full-orbed, robust biblical worldview that accomplishes two things: (1) biblical grounding for one’s own life, and (2) help to engage the culture with the gospel. Fred Smith has provided a marvelous tool to assist every believer in this endeavor. Eminently biblical yet readable and practical, this book will equip you for front-line cultural engagement. Highly recommended.”

David AllenDean of the School of TheologySouthwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Any thinking person today is familiar with the word “worldview.” We hear it all the time. But sadly, most people are unable to articulate what a worldview is and as a result cannot assess how reasonable their own worl-dview is. This means that most Christians are unable to discern the biblical worldview and thus don’t know whether their own view of life is consistent with God’s Word. For these reasons (as well as many others) Fred Smith’s Developing a Biblical Worldview is a breath of fresh air and a much needed corrective to our current cultural malaise. I highly recommend this book. You will be the better for reading it!”

Robert B. StewartProfessor of Philosophy and Theology, and Greer-Heard Chair of Faith and CultureNew Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

“Developing and applying the biblical worldview is essential for all Christians. Smith articulates a compelling and creative approach for all fol-lowers of Christ to develop the biblical framework for belief and action.”

Lew Weider Professor of Biblical Worldview, Liberty University

Developing a Biblical Worldview: Seeing Things God’s WayCopyright © 2015 by C. Fred Smith

B&H Publishing GroupNashville, Tennessee

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978–1–4336–7446–4

Dewey Decimal Classification: 261.1Subject Heading: CHRISTIAN LIFE\CHRISTIAN SOCIOLOGY\

RELIGION AND SOCIOLOGY

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Printed in the United States of America1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 • 20 19 18 17 16 15

VP

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1Who Are We? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Chapter 2Where Are We? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 3What Is Wrong? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

Chapter 4What Is the Answer? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 5Understanding Worldview through Scriptural Examples . . . 87

Chapter 6The Four Worldview Questions from America’s Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103

Chapter 7Applying the Biblical Worldview to Popular Culture . . . . . .127

Chapter 8Barriers to Developing a Biblical Mind-Set . . . . . . . . . . . . .149

Chapter 9Developing a Biblical Worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181Subject Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185Scripture Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

1

Introduction

The world bombards us every day with ideas and perspectives on just about everything. We are encouraged to adopt a liberal

or conservative perspective on just about every matter. There is also a feminist perspective and even a Christian perspective on practical-ly everything. Underlying these perspectives is always a worldview. Ideas and perspectives do not exist in a vacuum. There is a whole set of assumptions about how the world really is that lies behind every one of these perspectives. In fact, everyone has a worldview, a comprehensive picture of reality, which affects everything they do.1 These are not unique; in fact most people within any particu-lar subculture, or demographic group, have a shared worldview that enhances the quality of community life and facilitates communi-cation between group members. Our own worldview is affected by the perspectives that we see and hear. This is why we should avoid evil influences such as pornography, hate speech, and other nega-tive influences. They will affect our worldview. Even some seemingly positive influences, however, can have a false worldview underlying them, and we must learn to be careful and discerning.

The Bible too has a worldview. Because it is God’s revelation of himself, the Bible gives us insight into God’s way of seeing things. The Bible is the final authority, “the supreme standard by which all

1. Greg Laurie, Worldview: Learning to Think and Live Biblically, Studies in Christian Living (Dana Point, CA: Kerygma Publishing, 2012), 9.

2 Developing a Biblical Worldview

human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried,”2 and therefore we should seek to adjust our worldview to God’s, that is, to the biblical worldview.

Many Christians do not know how to do this, nor even sense the need. They assume that they have a biblical worldview simply because they practice a basic Christian morality or because they do not believe in certain worldly ideas such as evolution, abortion, and gay marriage. It is commendable to live morally, and we should follow the Bible on these matters. This does not in itself, howev-er, demonstrate the presence of a biblical worldview. If the Bible is relevant for all parts of everyday life—and it is—then the biblical worldview must govern how we see every aspect of our lives, how we make decisions, and even our attitudes, every day.

WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?

David Naugle has said that a “worldview is an inescapable func-tion of the human heart and is central to the identity of human be-ings as imago Dei.”3 In other words, we all have a worldview, and that worldview is shaped by our culture, our experiences, and our person-al backgrounds, including what we have read and heard. Worldviews are not systematic, nor even always conscious. They are “perceptual frameworks” or “ways of seeing.”4 We often assume the truth of our own worldview without carefully examining it. Worldviews include philosophies, and even theologies, but are not identical with them.5 In this light, if we are to see things God’s way, the Bible must be for us a dominant influence in our lives, the source of the worldview we live by. The Bible must be more than merely something we pick up and read for “inspiration,” but something that determines our thinking, our behavior, and our destiny.

2. Southern Baptist Convention, “The Baptist Faith and Message 2000,” Section One: “The Scriptures,” accessed September 17, 2013, http://www.sbc.org/bfm/bfm2000.asp#i.

3. David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), xix.

4. Brian Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1984), 17.

5. Ibid.

Introduction 3

Sometimes we get to something best by beginning with ne-gation. We will be better prepared to understand what a biblical worldview is if we first determine what it is not. This will clear away misconceptions so that we can see clearly what a biblical worldview really is.

WHAT A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW IS NOT

Many misconceptions abound about the biblical worldview. This section will lay out some of these and explain why they are not biblical worldviews, or at least, not fully developed ones.

Not Just a Moral System

Some people identify the biblical worldview mostly with moral behavior. Certainly someone who holds to a biblical worldview will behave differently from someone who does not. However, morality alone is not the biblical worldview. This error takes several forms.

Traditional morality, where people are friendly, honest, hard-working, and exercise good manners and taste, is one of these. Being like this is not bad by itself, and in fact the Bible commends these values as part (but only part) of the godly life. Traditional middle-class morality and respectability have deep roots in bibli-cal teachings, and someone who lives a biblical lifestyle will look superficially like someone who practices this kind of respect-ability. However, the Christian lifestyle is much more than mere respectability.

Others identify the biblical worldview with a more radical morality, such as those who, following the lead of Ron Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger,6 call for a radical lifestyle change. Sider called Christians to devote time and resources to world hun-ger, but others have called believers to devote themselves to missions or something else. This looks attractive partly because it emphasizes the radical difference between the way Christians should live and the way most of the world lives. Living a biblical lifestyle will defi-nitely put one on a very different path from most people, and part

6. Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004).

4 Developing a Biblical Worldview

of the popularity of Sider’s call for radical living, as well as that by David Platt7 and many others, lies in the fact that many of us suspect that Jesus Christ wants more from us than mere middle-class subur-ban respectability.

Not a Political Statement

Some have identified “biblical worldview” with a certain type of political stance, or a set of positions on current issues. This may be a left-wing stance8 but is more often associated with a right wing conservative stance on the issues.9 Both stances take the Bible seri-ously, but they read it very differently.10

These political stances arise from one’s worldview, but it is a mistake to identify one’s own political beliefs or favorite issues as if these were the biblical worldview. It makes the Bible captive to something of this world. The Bible becomes subsumed under the “cause” and is interpreted in light of it. While many causes have a biblical dimension and it is perfectly appropriate for Christians to be concerned and involved with political matters, especially on moral issues, such matters should never obscure “the counsel of the Lord” that “stands forever” (Ps 33:11). The Bible should be pri-mary in how we view politics, rather than letting politics determine how we read the Bible.

Not Just One Doctrinal System

Finally, the biblical worldview should not be identified sole-ly with a particular doctrinal position such as Calvinism, or Dispensationalism, nor with details of eschatology or a particular view of sanctification. The Bible as a whole is much richer and much

7. David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Port-land, OR: Multnomah, 2010).

8. Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).

9. David Noebel, Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing World views (Manitou Springs, CO: Summit Press, 2006).

10. James Davison Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibil-ity of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010), 111–49.

Introduction 5

more complex than any “-ism” or school of thought. This book is written to help you place such theological and spiritual consider-ations into the larger perspective of the Bible itself. Let us turn our attention to what a biblical worldview is, now that we know what it is not.

WHAT A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW IS

Far from being limited to a particular aspect of life, the bib-lical worldview is comprehensive.11 It includes everything related to the doctrines, values, priorities, and understanding of how the world works that the Bible commends and promotes. It looks at the modern world through the lenses of the Bible rather than looking at the Bible using the lenses of the modern world.12 The Bible should determine how you understand reality, yourself, and those around you, and how you solve problems. It is not something we “adopt” in a single moment, but rather it is something we “develop” over a lifetime. This is why it is more complex than a mere list of doctrines and moral values.

DEFINING THE BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW: PARADIGMS AND RUBRICS

Some people summarize the biblical worldview in terms of a quick overview. We are familiar with schemes like “Creation, Fall, Redemption”13 that offer a framework for understanding the Bible’s story. It works quite well, and the system offered in this book fits into that framework. Others see it in wholly political terms, or as in some way affirming their own lifestyle choices. It is, in fact, testi-mony to the richness and depth of the Bible that it can be worked into such schemes, though all of them ultimately oversimplify and distort the Bible’s message. A fully developed biblical worldview

11. Laurie, Worldview, 9.12. Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 14.13. Brian Godawa, Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Dis-

cernment, 2nd ed. (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 22. Godawa credits Hermann Dooyeweerd with developing this framework, in his In the Twilight of Western Thought: Studies in the Pretended Autonomy of Western Thought (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press, 1972).

6 Developing a Biblical Worldview

will require much more than this. It will require deeper thinking, much deeper than the creation-fall-redemption paradigm or work-ing Scripture into a man-made system.

Harold Turner

Harold Turner, late professor at Selly Oak Missionary College in Birmingham, England, developed a broad scheme within which worldviews may be understood. We will refer to it from time to time throughout the book as it shows the contrasts between worldviews very well. Turner says “that there are only three possible ways of un-derstanding the world: atomic, the oceanic, and the relational; sym-bolized respectively by billiard balls, the ocean, and the net.”14 The atomic worldview is the worldview of most Americans. Like billiard balls on a table, each person is a unit, separate from everyone else. They touch and jostle one another, but in the end, they do not really affect each other much.

The oceanic worldview says that all things are really manifesta-tions of one underlying reality. The Hindu worldview is like that; all is Brahmin. The visible world is really an illusion, and we must over-come the illusion and be absorbed back into Brahmin because we are really one with Brahmin ourselves but unaware of our Brahmin nature.15 The ocean represents this view well. If you are standing waist deep in the water and scoop up a little into your hand, then let it slip through your fingers, then scoop up another handful, you re-ally cannot tell whether you scooped up the same water or different water the second time. The second scoop of water appears identical to the first and identical to the water in the rest of the ocean, for it is, in reality, one with it.

Between these two extremes is the relational worldview. All things in life are interconnected; they exist in relationship to what

14. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 171–72.

15. Joel Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential Texts ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007), 57.

Introduction 7

is around them, so that what is done in one place affects the rest.16 This is the worldview of the Bible and of many traditional rural and tribal societies. The Bible sees us as interconnected. What is done by one affects others, even affecting future generations. Exodus 34:7 tells us, God “will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.” In the New Testament, the church is likened to a body, with the parts all joined together (1 Cor 12:12–27). Because of Adam’s sin, “all die” (we are all affected by Adam) and “in Christ all will be made alive” (what he did 2,000 years ago affects our spiritual condition today) (1 Cor 15:22). Much moral teaching in the Bible is based on the idea that one person’s actions have effects on others in the community. Like a net where what happens in one place affects the rest, so also one’s actions have ramifications beyond oneself.

This is one reason why we have trouble with the biblical world-view. We live in an atomic worldview culture and try to read the Bible through that lens, and the Bible presents reality in relational terms. When the Bible says we are all “in Christ” we tend to see that as meaning we all agree on who Christ is and we all have similar moral and spiritual practices. The Bible actually means much more than that; it means we are all connected to Christ in a mystical spir-itual union, and therefore connected to one another. The Scripture that says, “Now you are the body of Christ, and individual mem-bers of it” (1 Cor 12:27) cannot be reconciled with a view of the church that sees it like a set of billiard balls racked up together for a short time before being scattered. The church as a “net” makes much more sense of numerous Bible passages. One of our first challenges in believing and living a biblical worldview is to change our mind-set from atomic to relational. Evangelism, the call to repentance and faith, must include repentance from the kind of hyper-individualism

16. Turner used “relational” to describe this biblical worldview, but a better term may be “interconnected.” This book will refer to the biblical worldview as either “re-lational” or “interconnected” as appropriate. They have basically the same meaning. Harold Turner, “Ten Theses on World, Church, and Mission Today,” in The Gospel and Our Culture Newsletter 6 (Summer 1990):3–4.

8 Developing a Biblical Worldview

that American culture encourages in every way. We must show an atomic-thinking world that our lives are interwoven and that we are responsible for one another and accountable to one another.

The atomic worldview lies behind many of the ills that plague American society. For example, people who see themselves as sep-arate individuals, whose lives and actions have no real effect on others, are far more likely to divorce. It also lies behind belief in abortion. Much of the defense of abortion “rights” assumes that the woman is an individual whose actions affect no one but herself.

The atomic worldview results in many people segmenting their lives into different parts: their work life, social life, family life, and religious life. Each segment exists on its own apart from the others.This is why many people can say “Amen” on Sunday when the pastor says “God created the world in six literal days” and then say “Wow, all those millions of years; incredible!” on Tuesday night while watching a documentary about evolution. It never occurs to them that they have contradicted themselves; one is religion, the other is “real life.” We may not see this tendency to compartmentalize our lives, but it is likely that we do it to some extent. The Bible challeng-es us to see all of life as a whole, in relational terms.

A Rubric Approach to Worldview Analysis

While the Atomic-Oceanic-Relational framework allows us to broadly categorize worldviews, it is too general to help us sort out the details. Many cultures have a relational worldview, and the Bible is just one among many.17 If we are going to discover the elements of our own worldview, the worldview of the culture around us, and the worldview of the Bible, we need a rubric that will raise questions and challenge us to examine all this much more deeply.

Rubrics set up a series of questions that reveal details of a world-view. Jim Denison offers the following seven questions that reveal one’s worldview: “What is real? How do we know what we know?

17. Lesslie Newbigin surmises that a relational worldview, held by those in tribal cultures, is one reason why it is easier for them to become Christians than people in atomic, westernized cultures. Newbigin, Gospel, 171–72.

Introduction 9

How should we think? How can we communicate meaningfully? What is valuable? What is beautiful? Where is history going?”18 These are valuable questions, but seeking to answer that many ques-tions becomes too complicated. We do not easily remember them in the midst of looking at the Bible, or even a television show or movie. Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey offered a simpler scheme a few years ago, based on the creation-fall-redemption outline. They say that all worldviews can be analyzed according to the following three questions: “Where did we come from and who are we (creation)? What has gone wrong with the world (fall)? And what can we do to fix it (redemption)? These three questions form a grid that we can use to break down the inner logic of every belief system or philoso-phy that we encounter. . . .”19

That, in fact, is a basic premise of this book: that we can use a set of questions to analyze and understand worldviews of all kinds. The Colson-Pearcey rubric, however, conflates two important ques-tions into one: “Where did we come from?” and “Who are we?” These should be separate questions. A similar rubric was developed some years earlier by Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton that does separate these:

(1) Who Am I? Or what is the nature, task and purpose of human beings? (2) Where Am I? Or, what is the nature of the world and universe I live in? (3) What’s wrong? Or, what is the basic problem or obstacle that keeps me from attaining fulfillment? In other words, how do I understand evil? And (4) What is the remedy? Or, how is it possible to overcome this hindrance to my fulfillment? In other words, how do I find salvation?20

18. Jim Denison, “Fishing and Football: A Christian Worldview Today,” Tex-as Baptists, accessed September 27, 2012, http://texasbaptists.org/2012/06/fishing-and-football-a-christian-worldview-today/.

19. Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, and Harold Fickett, How Now Shall We Live? (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 14.

20. Walsh and Middleton, The Transforming Vision, 35. The same series of questions is used in their later book Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Post-modern Age (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 1995).

10 Developing a Biblical Worldview

Walsh and Middleton credit Alan Storkey and James Sire for the inspiration for this series of questions.21 Sire raised seven questions, later expanded to eight, in the fifth edition of The Universe Next Door. Storkey’s eight questions more closely contain elements of the Walsh/Middleton rubric: “What is my identity?” is the “Who Am I?” question. “What is wrong treatment of others?” is an aspect of the “What is wrong?” question, and “What will make me happy?” is one way of framing the “What is the remedy?” question.22 Again, eight questions is too many for most people to keep in mind.

This book will use a form of the four worldview questions: Who am I? Where am I? What is wrong? And what is the answer? While we will explore these questions in ways quite different from Walsh and Middleton, I am deeply indebted to them for putting forth a schema that is simple enough to be adaptable and flexible enough to be applied to a variety of worldviews. I share their passion for seeing Christians move beyond giving lip service to the Bible to making the Bible’s view of reality an everyday part of life. Walsh and Middleton, and Harold Turner, are foundational to this book, but this one seeks to go well beyond their discussion and to offer the four worldview questions as a rubric that you can use every day to understand the worldviews that arise to challenge the biblical one, as well as to undergird your own study of the Bible.

The four-question format offered here can make the basic out-line of the biblical worldview clear through a series of short state-ments: Who Are We? We are beings created in God’s image. Where Are We? We are in the world God created. What Is Wrong? Sin. What Is the Answer? Faith in Jesus Christ. This, however, is only a beginning, a set of “hooks” on which to hang everything else. There is much more to hang on these four questions. This book is intend-ed to help you develop the tools to spend a lifetime developing and refining a biblical understanding of the world and to engage criti-cally the competing worldviews that are out there both now and in

21. Alan Storkey, A Christian Social Perspective (Leicester, England: IVP, 1979), 15–17; and James Sire, The Universe Next Door, 5th ed. (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 22–23.

22. Storkey, A Christian Social Perspective, 16.

Introduction 11

the decades ahead. The effort here is to be complete enough to give you more than minimal tools and yet flexible enough to equip you to apply it in a variety of settings and at whatever stage of spiritual growth you have reached.

With these things in mind, this book begins with a chapter ex-ploring each of the four worldview questions: who are we? (chap. 1), where are we? (chap. 2), what is wrong? (chap. 3), and what is the answer? (chap. 4). Then we will look at how various heroes of the faith in the Bible might have answered these questions in the midst of their circumstances and challenges. The general answers affect the specific answers given in specific situations. Seeing how Noah, Moses, and David answered these questions in specific circumstanc-es, while facing specific challenges, will help us bring the four world-view questions down to our daily lives (chap. 5).

Then we will look at the worldview that characterizes much of America (chap. 6). We are called to live out a biblical worldview in the context of this country and its culture, and if we are to do so, we need to understand how many Americans typically answer these four questions. This will help us see more clearly both the sim-ilarities and the differences between the bibilical and the American worldviews. This analysis will also help us detect places where the world’s influence has affected our own thinking.

Chapter 7 examines various aspects of popular culture today. You will learn how to apply the four worldview questions to movies, television shows, and such, sometimes with rather surprising results. You will find that the underlying worldview of many of these is fur-ther from the biblical worldview than you had thought. You will also gain a valuable tool that you can use in turning discussions with others, both believers and nonbelievers, toward biblical themes and the gospel. Everyone likes to talk about their favorite movies and television shows. If you can offer a biblical perspective on these, it may lead to opportunities to share Christ as the real answer to their need.

Finally, chapters 8 and 9 encourage the process of developing a biblical worldview of your own. Again, this is not something you

12 Developing a Biblical Worldview

simply decide you will “have”—“Today, I am going to adopt a bibli-cal worldview.” Instead, it develops over time, as you examine your own worldview and compare it with your growing knowledge of the Bible and with your understanding of the larger culture and its influences on you. By the end of chapter 9 you will be able to ana-lyze worldviews, including your own, and see areas where your own thinking and behavior need to change. You will also have a plan for adopting a growing biblical worldview over the rest of your life.

Let’s begin.

13

Chapter 1

Who Are We?

INTRODUCTION

No question is closer to us than the question of our own identi­ty. Who are we; what does it mean to be a human being? Are

we just complex biochemical machines? The highest animal? Are we spirit beings trapped in the prison of the human body? Are we something more? The question goes right to the heart of our world­view, and every person has some understanding of their self­identity.

Who are we? God’s Word says we are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27) and that we are fallen beings (Rom 3:23). As Christians we are also new creatures in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). All hu­man beings live in the tension between who we are as created in God’s image and who we are as fallen, sinful people. All Christians have the added dimension of the indwelling Spirit for power and guidance in living as people in whom the image of God is progres­sively being restored.

The larger culture has quite different answers to these questions. Basically, it says two things about who we are: first, that we are the highest stage of evolution, and therefore one among different kinds of animals,1 and second, that we are essentially very sophisticated

1. Charles Darwin emphasized the wide disparity between humans and animals and sought to account for it in his The Descent of Man even as he presented his case for man as a “higher” level of the apes. See especially chap. 3, “Comparison of the mental

14 Developing a Biblical Worldview

computers, different from other computers only in degree.2 One of these views makes us a part of nature—a product of the natural world—and denies the spiritual dimension completely. The other view denies the importance of nature, and the spiritual, making us nothing more than carbon­based machines. Who are we, then, and how should our answer to this question affect the way we live?

God says that we are created in his image, and we are all sinners, fallen creatures, corrupted and in need of redemption and a new life. This is a very different answer from the world’s answer. It ac­knowledges that we are part of the creation—therefore beings who participate in nature—but this view affirms also that we transcend nature. We are “in his image” and therefore partake of something beyond creation. There is something within all of us that is not part of the natural world. And yet, as Scripture affirms, we are corrupt­ed. This affects all of us too. It is one reason that people can eagerly embrace false ideas about who we are.

These false ideas can have profound ramifications for life. If we believe that we are simply advanced animals, we will acknowledge no higher moral law than our own desires and lusts. If we are noth­ing more than machines, then we have no moral responsibility to God or to others. On the other hand, if we really understand and embrace the biblical answer to the “Who are we?” question, we find motivation to live a godly life.

Because most people embrace worldviews foreign to the Bible, the way we should answer this question will be different from the way “most people” answer it. We must be prepared to live very dif­ferently from those around us in light of who we really are according to the Bible. Living a life of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ is

powers of Man and the Lower Animals,” in The Descent of Man (New York: American Home Library, 1902).

2. Accessed June 4, 2013, see http://www.hutter1.net/ai/sintro2ai.pdf. Marc Hut­ter believes that it is only a matter of time before we create computers that will equal or exceed human beings, and that machines will then design more advanced machines. It is possible that human minds and machines will somehow merge into something suprahuman. All of this assumes that the answer to “Who are we?” is to be understood in terms of “we are complex computers, different from others only in degree.”

Who Are We? 15

much easier if we see ourselves and other people as God sees us.3 This is why it is so important that we develop a biblical answer to the “Who are we?” question, one that is deeply imbedded in our way of thinking, and not just a “doctrine” to which we give lip service.

People begin to answer the “Who are we?” question in very ear­ly childhood, although it certainly changes as we mature, especially as we grow in Christ. We receive our sense of who we are from our parents initially. Cultural assumptions about what it means to be a person, and what life is about, are passed on from parent to child, beginning before we even know how to speak.4 Therefore, if we are to challenge our own already deeply embedded worldview assump­tions with what God says, we must work toward developing our self­identity from the Scriptures.

Answers to the “Who are we?” question go far beyond the sur­face level of “we are creatures in God’s image” or even “we are fallen and sinful creatures, in which the image of God is marred.” These are universal answers, ones that apply to the whole human race. We must begin with these truths but include others derived from them. Also, there is a more restricted sense of the universal answer that applies only to Christians. Here the question is, “Who are we in Christ?” What do we mean by the words “I am a Christian” or “I am redeemed” or “I am a new creature in Christ?” This second level, while true of all Christians, is not true of all people. If we are to live according to the biblical worldview, we must live in light of the an­swers at this level as well.

There are lower levels at which we answer this question—a third level where we may say, “I am an American” or “I am a Southern Baptist” or “. . . a Southerner,” etc. A fourth level has to do with our

3. John S. Hammett, “Human Nature,” in A Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel L. Akin (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2007), 341.

4. Walsh and Middleton cite a study by Margaret Mead that compares how Japanese babies and Canadian babies are raised, the one to be docile and dependent, the other to be assertive and on their own. For example, in the bath, the Canadian baby struggles with the mother over the washcloth, having learned already that life is about “indepen­dence.” Brian J. Walsh and J.  Richard Middleton, The Transforming Vision: Shaping a Christian World View (Downer’s Grove: IVP Academic, 1984), 17–19. Clearly, an atomic worldview begins early in life, at least in Western cultures.

16 Developing a Biblical Worldview

occupation, lifestyle, and specific circumstances—“I am a student at Liberty University” or “at Oklahoma Baptist University,” and “I am a non­smoker” or “I am a bookish person,” “a member of First Baptist Church,” and “a part­time stocker in a grocery store.” Even at these levels, the way we answer the top­level questions should affect the way we live at these more personal levels.

It is our universal answers, the ones we assume to be true, that really determine our worldview. This is then lived out in the ways we answer the lower­level particular questions. Often, we hear of people whose lifestyle is very different from their profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Often the disconnect between one’s claim to believe the Bible and the kinds of answers one lives out related to these low­er­level questions demonstrates an actual worldview that is not as biblical as we think. For example if we say we believe that moral and spiritual commitments are most important but then focus on mate­rial things, such as looking stylish, then it is possible that our actual worldview is more shaped by Madison Avenue’s materialistic values than by biblical ones. This is the case even if we say on Sundays, “I am a creation of God in his image.” One goal of this book is to help readers connect the religious truths they know and repeat in church to the way they answer the third­ and fourth­level questions. We will not treat these lower levels much in this chapter although fu­ture chapters will offer the reader help in answering those questions. These third and fourth levels, in fact, also relate very much to the “Where are we?” question in chapter 2. This chapter will examine closely the biblical answer to the “Who are we?” question and will explore the tension between creation (and regeneration) and fall in who we are. We will concern ourselves, then, with the first two levels in this chapter, and we will connect them to how we live our lives day to day.

WE ARE CREATED IN GOD’S IMAGE

Two concepts are key to understanding the biblical worldview as it relates to the “Who are we?” question: God created us in his

Who Are We? 17

image,5 and we are fallen creatures, sinners by nature.6 We must be­gin with the fact of our creation by God.7 We are dependent on God in significant ways, even though we function as seemingly indepen­dent persons.8 He created us to be dependent on him and to be in­terdependent upon one another for fullness of life. These realities remain even though we are now fallen.

Like many biblical teachings, it is easy to say, “I am created in God’s image” without giving the matter much thought. (Similarly it is easy to say, “All have sinned” or “We are corrupted by the fall” without letting this fact impact our lives significantly.) Some seek to treat the image of God within us as some sort of functional reality, as if the image of God is something we do, or a quality of relation­ship we have with one another and with the creation.9 However, the dominant view for most of the history of the church has been that the image of God is substantive—it is “some definite characteristic or quality within the makeup of the human,” characteristics such as intelligence, rationality, and spirituality, for example.10

Because God created us in his image, we share certain traits in common with one another, traits related to the best realities of our character and nature. Also, because “all humans, without exception, are sinners,”11 we share traits related to moral failure in common as well. In both situations though, we are more like everyone else on the planet than we are different from them. Every one of us, if we understood the Bible, would answer the “Who are we?” question

5. It is surprising that few Bible passages really treat this topic directly. Still, it is the high point of the creation account in Genesis, and it turns up in relationship to murder in Genesis 9, so we may say that it is foundational to who we are. See Hammett, in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 351.

6. R. Stanton Norman, “Human Sinfulness,” in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 451–52. See also Rom 3:10 and 3:23.

7. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 11. “You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.” “Who am I?” can only be an­swered meaningfully in terms of who I am in light of God’s purposes and intentions.

8. Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 5–10.

9. Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 139–42.

10. Millard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 520–21.

11. Ibid., 638.

18 Developing a Biblical Worldview

in the same way. This runs counter to a modern popular mytholo­gy—that we are all “unique individuals.”12 Superficially we certainly are different; we have different faces, different hair and eye color, and even different personalities. However, these really fall into a narrow range. For example, hair color ranges from blond and red through brown and black, but it is not naturally pale blue, green, or fluorescent. Such differences are more like the decorations on a cake. Underneath, all is essentially the same; we are all products of God’s intention to create us in his image, and we are all impacted by the fall. Because there is only one God who has one personali­ty with one mind and one will, it is only logical that we, being in his image, are all more similar to one another than we are different. Recognition of this reality is a major step in moving away from an­swering the question “Who are we?” as the world does to answering it God’s way.

Genesis 1:27 says that “God created man in His own image.” Theologians have speculated about the meaning of this concept, but it is probably best to see it in terms of those things we share in com­mon with God.13 We are, as Anthony Hoekema has said, “like God in certain respects.”14 The Hebrew word for image, tselem, indicates that “image” in Genesis 1:27 means something like “a representation of God.”15 We should search the Scriptures then to see what charac­teristics of God we share with him in some measure. Obviously we are not equal with God in power or knowledge, and certainly not in moral goodness; but we share, to a limited extent, some of these characteristics. A study of the Bible’s description of God will show that God has personality, which includes “self­consciousness and will.”16 He makes choices and he has emotions. He also has moral

12. This website offers a nonbiblical answer to the question “Who am I?” and like many thousands of other sources, it affirms the idea that we are unique and different from one an­other: accessed May 30, 2013 , http://www.manifestyourpotential.com/self_discovery/ 0_start_journey_self_discovery/being_unique/what_makes_me_unique.htm.

13. One problem is that, important as this truth is, “only three passages all of them from the book of Genesis deal directly with the image of God” even though it is dealt with indirectly elsewhere in the OT. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 11.

14. Ibid., 13.15. Ibid.16. Erickson, Christian Theology, 295.

Who Are We? 19

feelings, creativity, and an aesthetic sense as well. In this light, he ex­hibits moral outrage over sin; he creates and he evaluates the beauty and worth of his creation, calling it “good” (Genesis 1). These are all things that are true of human beings as well. We all have personali­ties, and we all share in moral and aesthetic feelings to some extent, and in that sense we all are “in his image.”

Personality

Like God, we are beings with personality (mind, will, and emo­tions). We all have minds and are conscious of ourselves and of our surroundings. We are able to think, believe, understand, and know. We all have will, the capacity to make decisions and act upon them. We have emotions as well; we react to our environment and our thoughts through our feelings. Our personalities may differ from one another, but all of us share in the basic characteristics of think­ing, feeling, and willing.17

Mind

This is part of the image of God within us because God has a mind. We see this all through Scripture. In Genesis chapter 1, God is clearly aware of himself and of his surroundings, for he makes de­cisions and creates in an orderly manner. He evaluates his creation and calls it “good.” He is aware of the world and reacts to it. For ex­ample, in the book of Jonah, the Lord told Jonah to go to Nineveh and he knew that the city would repent at Jonah’s preaching.

We too are aware of ourselves and the world around us. We know the condition of our environment and what is happening around us. We evaluate situations, and we know the conditions of things we own. As Christians, we should seek to conform our think­ing to God’s ways as much as possible, given our limitations. We must learn to see things God’s way, as he has revealed his mind to us in Scripture.

17. Jim Miller, Going Beyond Belief: Turning a Crisis into an Adventure (Blooming­ton, IN: CrossBooks, 2010), 38.

20 Developing a Biblical Worldview

This view of ourselves is in sharp contrast to efforts to define us as very sophisticated computers. Unlike humans, computers are not aware of the environment. They “know” nothing, and they do not think. They produce data and find things, but they do not con­sciously react to the environment. This is completely different from the way the human brain works. Contrary to what modern cogni­tive science is seeking to prove about the mind and artificial intel­ligence,18 the “Who are we?” question cannot be answered simply with, “We are incredibly complex computers.” Computers do not decide what questions to ask, nor do they choose a best method to find answers; we do. If we are to live biblically in this world, we must recognize who we are: beings with minds.

We are reasoning beings. We have the power to think, to detect the flaws in an argument and to find a better one, to work a math problem. We are like God in this, only to a lesser degree than him. The order in the universe reveals that God is a logical being. He loves things that are mathematically sound, that work according to principles, that are predictable.

Because we are created in God’s image, many people enjoy working math teasers or solving logical puzzles. There is something pleasing about the order and beauty of mathematics.19 The God who created a universe characterized by predictability, logic, and sensibility created us in his image and gave us the capacity to enjoy these things in his universe.

The world’s answers to the “Who are we?” question cannot ac­count for our reasoning ability. In fact it has been pointed out that in a purely naturalistic universe, a universe without God, we would not have the ability to reason at all. We would simply be a cog in the cosmic machine, and unable to speculate on the nature of our own existence or on the existence of God.

18. See Robert Cummins and Denise D. Cummins, eds., Minds, Brains, and Com-puters: An Historical Introduction to the Foundations of Cognitive Science (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003).

19. Scott Chamberlin, Serving the Needs of Intellectually Advanced Mathematics Students (Marion, IL: Pieces of Learning, 2012), 108.

Who Are We? 21

Will

Will is the ability to “make decisions, to set goals, and to move in the direction of those goals.”20 In this sense, God wills. He willed in creation, “Let there be light,” and he executed his will—“there was light.” He willed the creation of the plants, animals, and man (Gen 1:11–12, 20–25, 26–27). Throughout the Bible, God willed that certain things be so and then brought them about. In Genesis 17:2 God says to Abraham, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you greatly.” That is what God did. He warned of judgment and carried it out, or he chose to relent when they repented (1 Kgs 14:15; Pss 7:11; 75:7).

God wills a thing and carries out his will. The most well­known statement of this is found in Isaiah 55:11: “My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and will prosper in what I send it [to do].”

We share this characteristic with God even though our power is limited. We make plans, and set our intentions, but, unlike God, we may not always accomplish what we will. James 4:13–15 illustrates this fact. We may will to do something (such as to move to another city, to buy and sell, and make a profit), but we are subject to the will of God. We are people who will and who carry out our will but on a more limited basis than God. His powers are infinite; ours are not. His will is certain to become reality. We face limitations and challenges.

This is in sharp contrast to how the world answers the “Who are we?” question. The world cannot account for the fact of the will, which separates us from animals and from computers. Computers do not have wills as we do. Computers cannot choose between op­tions. They do not make plans. Likewise, animals do not have free will in the same sense that we do. They act on instinct, and they can learn from experience, but that is qualitatively different from

20. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 5.

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evaluating and choosing options, including choosing to sacrifice the self ’s interests in favor of those of others.21

The Bible affirms that we are more than machines, and we are certainly a separate category of being from nature. The Bible ac­counts for this by showing how human free will is a reflection of God’s ability to will to make plans and to act.

We are beings who can create and who appreciate beauty. God created the heavens and the earth, and he pronounced them “good.” It is reasonable to assume that he included beauty, a kind of good­ness, in this evaluation of his work. God loves beauty, and his own character leads him to create and to enjoy beautiful things.

Like him we want to both create, and enjoy, beauty. Unlike an­imals, or computers, human beings find real pleasure in the beauty of music or art. We reflect in ourselves God’s love of beauty. It is not this way with other creatures. Birds, for example, build nests entirely on instinct, and each nest is just like every other nest made by that kind of bird but different from nests made by other kinds of birds. Computers can generate patterns that have a kind of beauty, but they do not create something new. Only human beings are able, like God, to create things, both for beauty and for usefulness. Unlike God, we need some kind of prior “stuff ” to create from (wood, pa­per, a computer program, paint).

Emotions

Part of God’s personality is emotions. God feels outrage (Ps 106:40), joy (Prov 11:20), love ( John 3:16), anger (Num 12:9)—the full range of emotions. We have the same emotions as God, on a lower scale. Just as God loves his creation, we love our families (Deut 14:26). As God feels kindly toward his people, we usually feel

21. Björn Brembs, “Towards a scientific concept of free will as a biological trait: spontaneous actions and decision­making in invertebrates.” The Royal Society, 2010, accessed June 19, 2013, http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/278/ 1707/930. Brembs concludes that animals have free will within a restricted range. The paper assumes that the function is similar from the insect level all the way up to hu­mans but recognizes that science cannot account for the mechanism by which brains generate a possible range of choices. The author assumes that the human brain is much like animal brains, and that all brains function like computers.

Who Are We? 23

kindly toward those around us. As God feels outrage at unrighteous­ness (Rom 1:18), we are outraged at injustices done in the world. Just as God becomes angry with those who defy him (Exod 23:21), so we also become angry toward family, friends, and coworkers who thwart or oppose us.

The worldly models of who we are cannot account for the emo­tions. Especially, they cannot account for moral outrage over evil and injustice. Computers have no emotions at all, although researchers at Tel Aviv University are seeking to generate computer programs that will cause computers to behave as if they have emotions.22

The image of God within us involves our “spiritual and moral integrity” also. Who are we, then? We are moral beings with moral feelings, and we make moral choices. The human conscience is itself testimony to this fact and that “right and wrong, good and bad are meaningful categories and essential to our personal identity as so­cial beings.”23 We have a sense of moral outrage at injustice, and we desire to live lives that at least appear morally justifiable to others and to ourselves. God, who is truth ( John 14:6), created us to be up­set when we are deceived. God, who hates injustice (Isa 61:8), gave us the capacity for outrage when we see injustice happening in the world (Num 16:5; Neh 5:6). God, who values all things good, gave us the capacity to recognize good and loathe evil, even though we find evil within ourselves. It comes from the fact that we are created in his image, and yet we cannot live up to that reality.

Summary

Who we are is a reflection of who God is. Like him we have moral feelings, reasoning power, and creative sensibilities. We ex­ercise these capacities to a much lesser degree than he does, and we find in ourselves that these capacities are warped. We know good­ness but too easily embrace sin. We may think or act irrationally,

22. “Soon your computer will have emotions like you,” The Economic Times, ac­cessed June 19, 2013, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011–04–20/news/29451014_1_computers­artificial­intelligence­programmes.

23. Paul T. Jersild, Making Moral Decisions: A Christian Approach to Personal and Social Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 52.

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and we sometimes choose what is ugly over what is beautiful. The reason for this is because we are “fallen.” The next section will ex­plain this reality, which is also part of the universal answer to the “Who are we?” question.

WE ARE FALLEN CREATURES

Humanistic optimists often speak of “the basic goodness of the world as axiomatic, despite the presence of sin.”24 This optimistic view is not what the Bible teaches however. Despite the reality of our creation in God’s image, there is another aspect to the “Who are we?” question that we must face: We are fallen creatures, sinners by nature. This is true of every one of us.25 We disobey our creator, even though we are dependent upon him. Even though we have been cre­ated in the image of God, and that image has not been erased within us,26 we struggle with the reality of sin every day. We are far from perfect. We live constantly in the tension between the ideals we hold, arising from the fact of our creation in God’s image, and the reality that arises from our sinful desires. Even though Christians are a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), we still struggle against selfish, self­centered, sensual, and corrupt desires in this life.27 We should live in the awareness that “there is certainly no righteous man on the earth, who does good and never sins” (Eccl 7:20).

This, while it is universal, is an abnormal situation, rather than what God intended.28 Our sense of the ideal, a product of how God created us, leads us to look for it and expect it, in ourselves and in others. The reality of sin confronts us every day with the reality that things are not normal with us or with our world.

24. Mark Lila, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics and the Modern West (New York: Random House Digital, 2008), 36.

25. Norman, “Human Sinfulness,” in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 451.26. Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the

Way (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 384. The image of God is damaged certainly, but it is still there (see Jas 3:9). Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 15, 19.

27. Rick Warren even began his best­known book with the statement, “It’s not about you.” The Purpose Driven Life, 17.

28. Erickson, Christian Theology, 518.

Who Are We? 25

Sin then affects who we are. We are not “normal” but rather something different from what we would be if the fall had not hap­pened. We all have negative personality traits that would not exist if the fall had not happened. We must live with the fact that sin affects everything about us. We should not give in to the temptation to excuse our sins. One major aspect of repentance of sin is confession. God asks us to admit who we are as fallen creatures so that he might begin to transform us into who we can be as creatures made in the image of God.

Similarly, sin affects our relationships. We are not alone and separate. We are fallen creatures who live relationally with other fallen creatures. One person’s temper, or laziness, will cause friction with another person whose particular sin may be impatience or per­fectionism. We live in a world filled with strife, war, conflict, di­vorce, sibling rivalry, and other types of dysfunctional relationships. Human greed, fear, insecurity, and doubt lead us into conflicts with one another. If we see ourselves as nothing more than animals, or as nothing more than machines, we will not take our moral responsi­bility to one another seriously. We cannot act as if we are like billiard balls, never affecting one another. A wrong answer to the “Who are we?” question causes people to behave in “fleshly” ways—ways that promote sinful desires that work against God’s will for us.29

Getting along in the world generally is made more difficult by the fact that humans sin. We break traffic laws because we are im­patient, which endangers others and may cost us a speeding ticket. How much better is it to rest in the knowledge that God is in con­trol, and to drive carefully. Sometimes we lie because we are afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. We argue because we value winning a point over cultivating a relationship.

29. “Fleshly” is a reference to what Paul calls “the flesh” (Rom 8:5–9; Gal 5:16–19). Paul uses the term sometimes to refer simply to physical bodies (Gal 2:20) and some­times to describe the sinful nature of unbelievers (Rom 7:5). It does not mean that sin is strictly associated with the body. After all, when Paul lists “works of the flesh,” he includes dispositions of the heart and mind (Gal 5:19–21). Paul says believers are not “in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (Rom 8:9). Nevertheless, since believers await the consummation of our salvation, we still struggle against the flesh. Until we obtain the fullness of our redemption (Rom 8:23), we must fight against sinful desires.

26 Developing a Biblical Worldview

We spend money we really do not have on things that we re­ally do not need out of a drive to make ourselves happy with ma­terial things. Many people have racked up a lifetime of debt in just a few years in the mistaken belief that life is about owning things, especially things that make us look good to others or that provide momentary entertainment. This is a result of the fall, of sin, in our lives. Many of us say we believe we are created in God’s image, to live for his glory. However, our driving habits, our personal relation­ships, and our spending habits indicate that we really have another worldview altogether. We mistakenly believe that we are completely independent of God, or that we are essentially a high form of ani­mal life subject to the physical desires of our base nature. We may believe that we are not morally responsible to other people, only to ourselves and to our own personal interests. We should be careful not to allow these false worldviews to drive our daily lives. We can learn to trust God, and obey his word, to minimize the effects of sin in our lives if we will adopt a proper understanding of who we are.

We live in the tension between the ideals we all share and the corruption that is an inevitable part of us all.30 Nonbelievers have a sense of justice born of our creation in his image (which implic­itly recognizes that there is a higher law) even as they may behave unjustly toward others at times; and everyone knows that it is good and right to love people, even as we all fail to practice it.31 Sometimes the same person may accomplish both great good and great evil. George Frederick Handel wrote some of the greatest music ever written, and yet it is said that he once, in a rage over a song, threatened to throw a singer out of a window.32 We all have read news stories about someone who commits a murder, and ev­eryone who knew him says, “I never imagined it was possible. He was such a nice person!” Everyone experiences temptations that we would never reveal to others. Christians today struggle as Paul did with the fact that we know what is right in our minds, but we find

30. Harold C. Warlick, The Human Condition in Biblical Perspective: Messages on the God-Human Encounter (Lima, OH: CCS Publishing, 1998), 50.

31. Horton, Christian Faith, 384.32. Paul Henry Lang, George Frideric [sic] Handel (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2011), 555.

Who Are We? 27

working in our bodies another force that leads us toward what is bad (Rom 7:18–25).

This has practical implications for us. We should stop looking for perfection in others. We pay lip service to the biblical teaching regarding sin, but then we expect perfection from other people. If we incorporate the reality of our common fallenness into our worldview, it will be easier to accept the faults of others. It will be easier to love people, even when they disappoint us.

All of life is lived between these two poles; we are created in the image of God, and we are deeply sinful. We are so immersed in those realities that it is easy not to notice it. The Bible however confronts us with it; and our own experience, of ourselves and of others, does as well. We will explore the ramifications of this much more deeply in chapter 2—for it is important to know that “a sinful and imperfect world” is a big part of the answer to “Where are we?”

WE ARE PHYSICAL BEINGS AND SPIRITUAL BEINGS

One of the most obvious traits we all share is the fact that we are both physical and spiritual, nonmaterial beings. We have bodies, and our bodies are real and significant. These two aspects, physical and spiritual, are joined together in us within one person. We are not merely spirits trapped in bodies. We are “materialized unitary beings” whose normal life involves our bodies as well as our souls.33 What happens to us physically is morally significant.

My body is real, and so are other peoples’ bodies. Therefore, what we do that affects others’ bodies has moral significance. This is another reason that an atomic worldview falls short of reality. Biblical ethics recognizes that we must live “relationally” with one another. We must act in this world in ways that treat others as sig­nificant. The biblical answer to the “Who are we?” question means that I must give consideration to acting toward others in ways that benefit their physical life. James points out that if “one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do

33. Erickson, Christian Theology, 555. See also Hammett, “Human Nature,” in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 344.

28 Developing a Biblical Worldview

not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?” ( Jas 2:16 NASB). Our good deeds cannot be limited to the “spir­itual” realm.

It is good then to feed the hungry and provide housing and clothing for the needy. This is one reason why it is a false dichotomy to say we must either evangelize or do “social ministries” but not both. Both are imperative if we take seriously the Bible’s statements regarding our moral responsibility to one another in a real, physical world. It is also wrong to say we do social ministries only to open doors for evangelism. That makes the body nothing more than a vehicle for us to “get to” the soul. This is far from the biblical under­standing of the body. Imagine someone saying, “Oh goody! A hur­ricane! Now we can help people in distress and then share the gospel with them!” That is clearly unbiblical, and foreign to our thinking. The human body is important. God cares whether people are warm, safe, and fed. He wants us to take care of any who are not, and not just as a means to share the gospel. He also wants “all to come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9), so we must evangelize as well. Both realms, physical and spiritual, are important, and both are part of a fully developed biblical understanding of the “Who are we?” question.

The fact that we are simultaneously spiritual and physical be­ings affects how you treat yourself. What you do to (and with) your own body has moral significance. As physical beings, we live in and through our bodies. We are responsible to both God and ourselves for the proper care of these bodies. This means, among other things, that we should get proper exercise. Although Paul said that “training of the body has a limited benefit” (1 Tim 4:8), he did not say that it offered no benefit at all. We should also eat properly and get sufficient sleep. These are not merely something to make us feel better or make us look slimmer. These activities are part of an overall view of ourselves that takes the physical nature of our being as seriously as the spiritual nature. We should eat properly, not just to be able to fit into a swimsuit, but because our bodies belong to God. We should exercise and get proper rest, not just to make our­selves look better, but in order that we might do better as Christ’s

Who Are We? 29

servants in this world. Seek to relate every activity of life—physical, spiritual, academic, and vocational—to the reality of who you are in Christ Jesus.

WE ARE CHRISTIANS

The entire world is divided into “saved” and “lost.” Being saved or being lost is part of the answer to “Who am I?” for every person on the planet, even those who are unaware of their spiritual condi­tion. Who are we? If you have trusted Jesus Christ, you may answer with other Christians that we are regenerate—which means that the image of God is being restored in us, “not all at once but pro­gressively.”34 This reality should be at the forefront of the Christian’s self­identity. Like unregenerate people, we live in the tension be­tween being created in God’s image and the moral corruption of the fall. But our inclination must be toward restoration of the image “in and through Jesus Christ.”35 There are several other aspects to who we are in Christ that should be noted.

We Are the Body of Christ

We are the body of Christ: “Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it” (1 Cor 12:27). This must be a major part of our identity. None of us is a lone individual. As Christians we are bound together in a common identity in Christ. Too many Christians regard the church as incidental to their sense of identi­ty. This is a mistake. Do not easily dismiss this important aspect of the biblical worldview. The Bible presents reality as relational, like a net.36 We are individuals, certainly, but not separate individuals. We are connected to one another, first in Adam (“in Adam all die”) and now also in Christ (“in Christ all will be made alive,” 1 Cor 15:22). “The need for community is part of God’s design in the creation of humans,”37 and this need is best expressed in close association with

34. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 47.35. Ibid., 55.36. Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans

1989), 171–72.37. Hammett, “Human Nature,” in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 406.

30 Developing a Biblical Worldview

other redeemed people. We are all in this together, and it is extreme­ly important that we live out of that reality.

As the body of Christ, we have responsibilities toward one an­other. We must be ready to give, to sacrifice time and energy, and to put other priorities aside, for the good of one another in his body. We are also accountable to one another. The behavior of one Christian affects the way the community sees the church as a whole, and affects the behavior of other Christians. It is imperative that every Christian embrace the great gift of being in community with other believers through a local church.

Students often tell me they are “Christians” but not members of any local church. Some hold membership in a church “back home” but have not been home for more than a few weeks at a time in several years. Others have no church membership at all. They may drift from church to church or simply attend a Bible study in their dorm. They say, “Church membership is not important. That is way too artificial. I am in the body of Christ, and that’s all that matters.” This sounds very “spiritual.” It seems more “pure” to just fellowship with other believers in the joy of the Lord than to sign a member­ship card and be on a church roll. However, this is foolish because actually joining a church makes a public statement of identity with a group of believers. Part of your answer to the “Who are we?” ques­tion should include, “We are _______ Church.” It means that you are bound to these people, accountable to them, and they to you. If you are just “attending most Sundays” without joining, you are not committed to anything. There is no accountability, no fixed relationship.38 Without a definite church home, one is more like a “billiard ball” separate from the others, not like part of an inter­connected whole. The Bible calls us into community, into a serious long­term relationship with other Christians (Heb 10:24, 25).39

38. This actually may be a milder form of the movement in America toward being “spir­itual” but not “religious”—a rejection of any kind of tradition, or institutional form of re­ligion. See the CNN article on this: accessed September 30, 2012, http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/29/my­take­im­spiritual­not­religious­is­a­cop­out/?hpt=hp_c2.

39. For further arguments for local church membership, see Jonathan Leeman, Church Membership: How the World Knows Who Represents Jesus (Wheaton: Cross­way, 2012).

Who Are We? 31

We Are Forgiven People

Who are we? Regenerate Christians are people who have been forgiven much. Most often we see forgiveness as basis for rejoicing, and so it is. There is nothing wrong with being happy in the knowl­edge that we are forgiven. But this is not the whole story.

Because we have been forgiven much, we should also “love much” (Luke 7:47). We should love God greatly and deeply be­cause of what he has done for us. He paid a debt we could never pay, and we owe him everything in return. We are all familiar with the melodrama stories where the damsel in distress is saved by the brave knight, and who then says to him, “I owe you my life!”40 We owe him, Jesus Christ, our lives, for he has saved us. We should also love others because we are free from the self­centered preoccupa­tion with guilt and sin that weighs down those still in the world. One reason we do not understand this is because too many of us have a faulty and shallow understanding of salvation. We would all do well to study salvation in the Bible, beginning with a word study of “forgiven” or “forgive” and then “saved” and “lost” and move on to “faith,” “repentance,” and “redeemed.” The better we understand our salvation the more we can live as people for whom “saved” and “forgiven” and “redeemed” is a vital part of our self­identity and of our relationships with others.

Regenerate People

Who are we? We have already mentioned several times that we are regenerate people. We have been regenerated by God—that means that the Holy Spirit has imparted a new life, eternal life, into us.41 As regenerate people, we have a new nature. We literally be­come “a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). This is why Jesus could say to

40. This theme turns up often in pop culture today as well. For example, in the popular television series The Big Bang Theory, Leonard endures many of Sheldon’s de­mands because Sheldon saved Leonard’s life. Leonard was carrying a can of rocket fuel in an elevator, but the formula was unstable and could have exploded. Accessed June 12, 2013, see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IOweYouMyLife.

41. Kenneth Keathley, “The Work of God: Salvation,” in Akin, A Theology for the Church, 739.

32 Developing a Biblical Worldview

Nicodemus, “I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” ( John 3:3). As born­again believers, we live out of resources that the world cannot imagine. The source of this life is heavenly and eternal. We have a source of power for obe­dience that the unregenerate person does not have.

People Indwelt by the Spirit

We are indwelt with the Holy Spirit from the moment of salva­tion. This is an important part of who we are. In the book of Acts, the presence of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is synonymous with salvation. In Acts 2:38, Peter tells the crowd that if they repent and believe they will receive the Holy Spirit. In Acts 10:45, those with Peter were surprised that the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and his family when they believed. People who have the Holy Spirit within them have spiritual gifts and power for living the Christian life (Eph 5:18). They have access to the teaching ministry of the Spirit for the purpose of understanding the Bible and knowing the will of God. Every believer has the Holy Spirit living inside them and may be confident that “Spirit indwelt” and all that goes with it is part of their self­identity.

CONCLUSION

In the end we see that how we answer the “Who are we?” ques­tion is important. If we accept the world’s evaluation that we are animals, or that we are no more than complex machines, we cannot account for realities of our thinking and willing and feeling powers. We cannot account for why we feel the way we do and why certain things are important to us. If we understand that we are created in the image of God, it is much easier to comprehend why beauty is important to us, why moral feelings are important to us, and why we make certain choices. Similarly, recognizing who we are as fallen creatures, as sinners by nature, accounts for much of our behavior as well. There is nothing in evolution and nothing in the way comput­er scientists are trying to duplicate the human brain to account for

Who Are We? 33

evil choices, evil actions, and the perverse delight people often take in that which is not good.

When we recognize who we are as sinful creatures, and the fact that sin affects every individual on the planet, we are able then to understand these realities as a tragic part of the way the world is. It motivates us to live our lives apart from sin as much as possible, and it helps us to understand why we sin. As believers in Jesus Christ we know that the answer to the problem of sin is in him. We rejoice in knowing that we are forgiven and that we have eternal life. Being in right relationship with God, we know that sin is not the final word. As members of the body of Christ, God has given us a place where we can find community, love, mutual accountability, and help in time of need.

When we share the gospel with others, we must recognize that we are calling people not merely to repent of wrong behaviors but to change their mind­set about who they are. “Repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21) must include a change in the answer to the “Who are we?” question for those we seek to bring to Christ. As important as “Who are we?” is, “Where are we?” is equally important, and therefore the kind of world we live in will be the concern of the next chapter.