Christian Worldview In The Family Life example essay topic

Outline Introduction I. The Christian Worldview. II. Living the Christian Worldview in the Family Life. Conclusion Introduction: Do we have a narrow view of the Christian faith? Many see it as simply a personal relationship with God, a commitment to Sunday services, Wednesday evening Bible study, and a little witnessing. Those are all good activities-as far as they go.

But Christians need to realize that every decision they make reflects their core values. So choices about voting, budgeting, marriage, movies, and heroes are all philosophical issues. Christians who don't have a distinctively Christian philosophy-a view of the world informed by biblical truth-will easily be suckered into living by the world's philosophies. This is why church pews may be full on Sundays, but secular values dominate our culture". It is time for Christians to put away childish thinking and boldly confront the world with the message of Christ". I. The Christian Worldview. Each of us lives in a physical, economic, and social environment largely not of our making.

Even so, we form part of our environment, and in visible and important ways we are formed by it. Furthermore, beyond our immediate surroundings lie urban, national, continental, and international cultures that also shape us. We can no more avoid participating in our surrounding cultures than we can avoid life itself. It is neither practical nor Christian to attempt to escape the major social structures in which human life occurs.

God created the world; He is not its enemy. Christians believe God also ordained the primary orders of life, including family, government, community, human productivity, gainful employment, and commercial exchange. All of us come to know ourselves as participants in such structures even though they differ in particulars from one culture to another. If the creation is good, as the Bible declares, then so are the primary social structures that help make human life possible. A worldview is simply the lens through which we see and assess the whole of human culture and our place in it. It is one of the major devices by which we navigate life.

Culture means the complex network of institutions, values, habits, tools, arts, and livelihoods that we create in community and that in turn shape us. Cultures are noticeably affected by their places in history and by their physical, spatial, technological, intellectual, and religious locations. Our worldview is strongly influenced by our place in a particular culture. "Everyone has a world view. It is not only a human prerogative, but a human necessity". Usually we aren't even conscious of our worldview (s).

Like corrective lenses, they are transparent unless called to our attention or until we venture into a culture marked by another worldview. Even then, the 'strangeness' of the other worldview likely will impress us most. Developing a Christian worldview means coming to see the whole world through the eyes of the resurrected Lord, who has judged the powers of darkness and who is even now making all things new. Seeing this world as the scene of a new creation, Paul said, is possible only after one has experienced the new creation in one's self (2 Corinthians 5: 14-21).

Only after the gospel's complete degree has seized us, only after we understand that in Christ the Name of God is being declared in all the earth, can we understand and develop a Christian worldview. A Christian worldview leads to a new way of seeing and doing and it derives from a new way of being. Developing a Christian worldview requires that we submit all of life's dimensions-individual and group, natural and technological, secular and sacred-to examination and reformation by the resurrected Christ (1 Corinthians 15: 20-28). Anyone not committed to comprehensive transformation should pay another visit to the meaning of discipleship.

The Christian worldview is the truth from Christ's point of view, informed by His prerogatives, not our feelings or experience. This is the truth that, when known, will set us free". Whether a person is Christian or not, he must acknowledge that the Bible describes a comprehensive perspective of life and the world". We must have a firm conviction that 'the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof' (Psalm 24: 1). Is this world the scene of divine visitation and transformation, or is it not? Should Jesus' inauguration of the kingdom of God and our confidence in the Holy Spirit's guidance produce in us hope or despair?

Will all the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, or will they not? Will the creation itself 'be set free from its bondage to decay and... obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God' (Romans 8: 21), or will it not? How we answer these questions determines what we believe about Christ's role in the world and our role as well. In Christ's resurrection, all powers that stand against His being Lord in the world must be put to flight. Christ has already judged and sentenced evil. A Christian, who wavers about how things will turn out, biting fingernails in near panic, is hardly ready to develop a Christian worldview.

A Christian worldview is powered in part by knowing that 'the Spirit who lives in us is greater than the spirit who lives in the world' (1 John 4: 4). Our Lord has 'spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in [the cross]' (Colossians 2: 15). Christians already know the world's future: Christ. Wherever they are or whatever they are doing, Christians should proclaim this Good News. The first chapters of Genesis tell us that God made us to rule and subdue the garden.

We are commanded to cultivate and keep it, to be His under gardeners, stewards over everything created before us: the earth, the seas, the birds and animals, the plants. Stewardship is a term we use most often in relation to money. But it describes our whole task on earth. This means we must see Christianity not simply as a personal relationship with Jesus, not simply as a faith system or a belief, not simply as a religion, but rather as the truth about all of life. Our God-given duty is to all of creation, striving to make it reflect the glorious character of God. What are the attributes of our glorious God?

Justice, mercy, wisdom, beauty, and order are a few. Are those characteristics reflected in His world? Is true wisdom taught in the schools? Do the arts express truth and beauty? " A biblical world view doesn't develop in a vacuum but must be active in changing the individual and society. Both in our personal lives and in public issues, the biblical worldview should determine the course of decision and action".

Being good gardeners requires training. The skillful gardener can identify the lily at every stage: as a bulb, as a shoot, as a young plant, and finally in its golden ripeness. But that gardener also has to know the thistle in all of those stages, so as to separate it from the cultivated flower. In God's garden everything is about God.

The good gardener examines every sign of life in the lilies, just as he or she searches out any sign of weed or disease. If we can't recognize false ethics in the business arena, how can we argue against them? If we don't understand what justice looks like, how can we achieve it in government? How can we make a difference in our secular society unless we discern with the eye of God's gardener? God's creation of the universe teaches us that there are two completely different and separate forms of being: uncreated being and created being.

There is a Creator-creature distinction. There is an inseparable gulf between created and uncreated reality. God is uncreated, independent and self-sufficient. He is in need of nothing outside of Himself.

Man was created. He is a creature. Man is totally, continually and always dependent upon God for his existence. God is infinite, eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing and immutable (i. e., God, being perfect, cannot change). Man is finite, temporal (i. e., a creature in time), limited in power, limited in knowledge and mutable (i. e., man grows and develops; man learns; and man can sin and do evil). Because God is perfect, unchanging, infinite and all-knowing, He cannot make mistakes.

God is infallible. Therefore, God must be man's source for all truth, knowledge and ethics. "In Your light we see light" (Ps. 36: 9). What is true, what is good and what is right is what God says is true, good and right. God's creation of the universe teaches us that God is the sovereign Lord of everything that exists.

God created the universe from nothing; therefore, God owns and has absolute authority over all reality. God owns us. God has absolute authority and total jurisdiction over all mankind. Therefore, obedience and service to God are not voluntary, trivial or unimportant. God commands us to study, believe and obey His divine revelation, the Bible.

The God who created us and sustains us this very moment will some day be our judge (Rev. 20: 11-15). The most important, significant and loving act in human history is the life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the promised Messiah. The foundation of salvation is the sinless life and atoning death of Jesus Christ. "Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Ac. 4: 12). There is only one possible way for us to be saved-through the merit of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary. He was born without original sin. Jesus Christ never ever sinned. Therefore He fulfilled the law in complete detail. Where Adam failed, and where we all miserably fail, Jesus Christ was victorious.

If we believe in Jesus Christ and place our trust in Him alone for our salvation, then the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed judicially by God the Father to us. This means that, on the Day of Judgment, we will be clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. In the throne room of heaven God will declare us just as ethical, righteous and perfect as Jesus Christ-not because of anything we have done but because of what Jesus Christ has done. Faith does not save us. Faith is the instrument by which we lay hold of the benefits of Jesus Christ. Faith is not an irrational leap in the dark.

We believe in Jesus Christ because it is not only rational but because the Christian worldview is the only rational, true, consistent worldview that exists. The following principles are suggested as characteristics of the Christian worldview. First of all every human being is created by God for a purpose. Secondly, in Christ dying for every person, God affirms His high view of individual men and women. Thirdly, because human character has been deformed by sin it needs to be trained to follow God's standards. Fourthly, Christianity is deeply relational, rather than material.

II. The Bible begins with a wedding and it ends with a wedding; the greatest love song in human literature is in the center, and Christ's first miracle sanctifies a wedding". Even though the Bible has great principles for living a victorious family life, still today the statistics are overwhelming. More than half of the marriages conclude in divorce. This happens because there is an incorrect view of what God intended marriage to be. God intended marriage to be in an eternal relationship with Him, a permanent relationship with the spouse, and a temporary relationship with the children.

The purposes for marriage found in the Bible are: wholeness, procreation, and demonstration of love. Man by himself is incomplete. God teaches us in Genesis 2: 18, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him". So the first purpose for marriage is fellowship, oneness, wholeness-love. The first man and woman were instructed to be fruitful and multiply. The procreation is in the context of family, according to God's pattern.

The beauty of God's plan can be seen in the joy that a child brings, the strength of that family, the companionship and security children provide parents in old age, and the most important one, the honor rendered to God through another generation of those who love and serve Him. And lastly, the marriage relationship is used throughout Scripture to instruct us concerning God's desired relationship with people. God is love and from the overflow of this love among Father, Son and Spirit came the creation of a being on the same pattern, deigned to love and to be loved as in the divine model. God meant for the husband and wife to be one. They are oneness of heart and mind, oneness of body, and oneness in their relationship with God. In God's intent, the relationship of husband and wife is to be completed in their oneness with God.

The relationship between Adam and Eve began to deteriorate when they chose alienation from God. Oneness is more than self-giving love and open communication, which can and often should characterize other human relations. These will not hold a marriage together for long. The key to a successful marriage and the cement that holds two people together for a lifetime is commitment, an exclusive contract relationship that is not negotiable. Robert Schuller spoke on marriage saying, "Unless we are willing to surrender some freedom to make permanent commitments, prepare to pay the price, loneliness. Love ends loneliness, but love has a price tag.

The price of love is commitment to continuity". When looking at the family life, from a Christian world view, there are some responsibilities that the Bible teaches about the Christian home. The responsibility of the husband. First and predominantly, the husband is to love his wife, and the standard in that relationship is the way Christ loved the church. He loved the church through total sacrifice.

Although no mere mortal can attain this goal fully, this is the standard by which man must ever evaluate his performance as a husband. There are many ways in which Christ showed his love for the church. He forgave even when they didn't ask for it. He was long-suffering.

He accepted them as they were. He makes provision for the needs, all the weaknesses. He was faithful to the end. Secondly, the husband is responsible for his wife and this involves leadership, not is a domineering spirit. Rather he must gently lead, modeling the standard of loving well. The husband is the leader in the home and he is responsible to God for the direction the marriage goes.

Thirdly, the husband is to provide for the family. The first provision is for the wife's spiritual welfare, which is encouraged by means of daily Bible study and prayer together. He also needs to provide intellectually, emotionally. Provision physically means protection and also material provision. The responsibilities of the wife. The first responsibility for the wife, as of the husband, is to live in love.

Titus 2: 4-5 reads", That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers of home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed". In biblical terms this means to consistently choose to act for the welfare of the other at whatever personal sacrifice. When both partners are committed to this way of life, the vast majority of marital problems are solved. Secondly, though it is in conflict with much contemporary Western world thinking, Paul clearly states that the wife is responsible to maintain the home, which is not in the form of a command but of a description of an ideal wife. This principle does not imply that a loving husband will refuse to participate in household responsibilities, but that the primary responsibility is the wife's. Thirdly, her role is to be a help complementary to her man.

She is the accompanist providing for a successful team performance through reinforcing her husband. Submission includes honor and obedience. Responsibilities of the parents. Parents are to love the children they beget.

The model of what our heavenly father does in love for us is the standard of total self-giving. Love for children must be spoken and demonstrated. If it is acted but not spoken, a child may miss the point and languish in the fear that love is not really there. But far worse is to talk it without consistently doing it. Perhaps the best give parents give their children is to love on another well. When it is visible and strongly felt, an atmosphere of security is created, and the parents become role models for all of life's relationships.

The second responsibility is to model the image of God in the process of restoration, so that people may see and give glory to God. In a special way, parents are responsible to live authentic Christian lives before their children. They provide the strongest human influence in the life of the child. Parents are responsible to provide materially, physically, socially, spiritually, and mentally for dependent children. In this way children will grow in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man. Proverbs 22: 6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it".

Instruction in the way of God is the responsibility of both parents, but the father is responsible to be sure it takes place. This includes full participation in the life of a Bible-teaching church, but it is also to be on a daily basis as part of the family life. The authors of the book "making sense of your world", write the following concerning this matter, "A father is measured for spiritual leadership in part by the godly control he exercises within his home". The last responsibility of parents is to discipline them. The first guideline in discipline is consistency.

When discipline is erratic and unpredictable the child will become discouraged. Then, he needs balance. The results of undisciplined permissiveness on one hand or unloving discipline on the other hand are equally damaging for a child. Responsibility of the child. "Honor thy father and thy mother" (Exod.

20: 12) is the comprehensive statement of the child's responsibility. Such honor is due, not on the basis that a parent has earned it or is worthy of it, but on the basis of an eternal relationship. Honor is due because of this permanent relationship. It expresses itself in several ways.

One way to honor parents is by showing them love. Another way is by obeying their parents in the Lord. The Lord arranged a beautiful solidarity of generations: the parents have the privilege of caring for their children for the first decades of their life, and the children may have the privilege of caring for their parents for the last decades. It is a wonderful opportunity for his children to demonstrate their love and loyalty and gratitude for life itself and for all the sacrifice those parents have invested in them. The topic of family is emphasized more than any other ethical issue in Scripture. Finally, this is the area of life that seems to be most under assault by the powers of evil.

We seem most vulnerable here, and we must do all within put powers to mobilize the forces of our understanding, of our combined Christian commitment, and of the concerted action of right biblical worldview to defend this basic building block of personal and social well being. Conclusion: Our Christian worldview can not be compartmentalized to any part of life, but must hold sway over all of one's life. It is manifested in our religious, personal, family, and social life. Jesus himself affirms this principle. He said, 'You are the salt of the earth... you are the light of the world' (Matt.

5: 13-14). 'Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven' (Matt. 5: 16). The disciples of Christ in relationship to the world are to be a preserving agent (salt), which would include all of humanity and its various lawful activities. As light, the saints give a strong testimony of the saving grace of God in their lives. This testimony is by good works.

When the world observes the good works of the saints, they may glorify God our Father in heaven. This is the chief end of man, to glorify God. This is the chief end of creation, to glorify God (Ps. 148). What are the classifications of the good works? Are the good works restricted to only the sacred areas of life?

Are the secular areas of life off limits to Christian good works? An affirmative answer represents the secular humanist view. Biblically, all areas of life are sacred to God. Good works are not only accomplished in religion and charity, but also include commerce, agriculture, government, and social life.

Biblical Christian worldview sees all of life as sacred unto the Creator God. Christians as stewards should apply their Christian worldview in all areas and more. A Christian worldview gives a person a balanced approach to all of life. Theology is the foundation of a worldview; from it comes philosophy and ethics. Our Christian worldview will manifest itself in our family life.

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