The Christian World and Life View - What Explains This Life For You?
Solomon has been universally recognized as the world’s wisest man. Arguably, he may also have been the richest. He was a man blessed by God. But if you read Ecclesiastes, you will see that there was a point in his life when he had a very ungodly, pessimistic, negative, skeptical, nihilistic, and dour philosophy of life. His view of life is spread throughout the book he wrote in the Bible - Ecclesiastes - but a segment of it can be read in chapter 1:2-11. This comes from the Living Bible.
“In my opinion, nothing is worthwhile; everything is futile. For what does a man get for all his hard work?
Generations come and go, but it makes no difference. The sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and north, here and there, twisting back and forth, getting nowhere. The rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full, and the water returns again to the rivers and flows again to the sea . . . everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied; no matter how much we hear, we are not content.
History merely repeats itself. Nothing is truly new; it has all been done or said before. What can you point to that is new? How do you know it didn’t exist long ages ago? We don’t remember what happened in those former times, and in the future generations no one will remember what we have done back here.”
With this view of life and the world, I wonder how Solomon would answer these questions:
What would you use to try and make sense out of dilemmas like this? What is your own personal world and life view that clarifies these questions?
All of us try to come to grips with questions like this by reaching back into ourselves for answers. What we come up with comes from our world and life view. Many people have never heard of a world and life view and would not know what it was if they did. But every one has a world and life view whether he knows it or not. What exactly s it?
A world and life view is your answer to explain all the reality you see around you. It explains your life and this life to you. It is the answers - adequate or not - that you have in your deepest being that help you understand everything you see and experience. It is your reference point. It interprets this life for you and tells you what it all means. It gives you answers to the questions I asked above about death, accidents, man’s inhumanity to man, and human events that make no sense. Your world and life view deciphers all that.
Now you may be asking, “If I have a world and life view, how did I get it?” You may have noticed that when you read those questions above, your mind was already processing some kind of answer. In other words, your world and life view was already at work for you, indicating that your mind was searching through its index for a response. Satisfactory or not, where did you get those answers that were formulating?
Some of them came from religious teaching you may have had. If you had no religious teaching, then maybe you read some philosophy or gleaned your views from a movie you saw, a book you read, or discussions you had listened to by others who made sense when they talked about these things. Maybe you just deduced your own answers to some of the difficult problems of life by your own observations. A world and life view can take root in your mind from a combination of many different sources. It may satisfy you or not. It may be correct, or it may not be.
My purpose here is to present the Christian world and life view and how it answers question like those I first asked. A world and life view that is of any value must not only give satisfactory answers, it must also be based on facts and reality. If it is, then it will do more than answer the EASY questions above. It will also speak truth about the HARD questions. The hard questions are the ones we spend our whole lives trying to plumb. These are the ones at the core of our being and the ones that really count. These are the uncertainties we encounter as teenagers that keep coming back throughout our lives and will be answering up until the day we die as we live out our existence.
I am talking about these questions:
Those are the questions that any world and life view struggles to answer and needs to answer. The Christian world and life view excels here. It is found in the Bible, and it is easily summarized in 3 words: Creation, Fall, Redemption. You will want to remember those words for three reasons. First, if you are a Christian, they will guide you in how you should live your life as a believer. Secondly, they will help you answer life’s most perplexing events. Thirdly, they will answer the five basic questions of life that hound us about our purpose, origin, behavior, and destiny.
Based on the three words above, here is a summary of the Christian world and life view. This is where you start if you want to settle the quandaries of the human condition. Then, following this statement, you will find the answer to life’s fundamental questions, or the HARD questions.
Creation
“There is a Creator who made and rules over everything. We are made in His image and were made to worship Him, enjoy Him forever, and give Him glory, honor, and thanksgiving.
Fall
But we are fallen creatures because of Adam's sin, and we have failed to fulfill our purpose. Now we are under the curse of eternal death. Because we have failed, all of the creation was cursed and has been corrupted with us.
Redemption
However, the Creator sent His beloved Son, Jesus, to atone for our sins on the cross and redeem us by grace through faith in His Son so that we will live our lives unto God in thanksgiving. On the last day, Christ will stand as Judge over all the earth at the resurrection of the dead, redemption will extend ‘as far as the curse is found’, and ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.’”
Who am I and where did I come from?
I am a creature made in the image of God.
Why am I here?
I am here to worship, enjoy, glorify, honor, and give thanksgiving, and live my life unto God my Creator.
Why do I do what I do?
I am fallen in sin because of Adam and am corrupted in all my ways.
Where am I going?
Unless I am redeemed by Christ the Savior from my sin, I will perish from God’s presence forever. But if I by grace trust in His Son, I will live with the Lord and enjoy Him forever in His eternal and righteous kingdom.
“In my opinion, nothing is worthwhile; everything is futile. For what does a man get for all his hard work?
Generations come and go, but it makes no difference. The sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again. The wind blows south and north, here and there, twisting back and forth, getting nowhere. The rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full, and the water returns again to the rivers and flows again to the sea . . . everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied; no matter how much we hear, we are not content.
History merely repeats itself. Nothing is truly new; it has all been done or said before. What can you point to that is new? How do you know it didn’t exist long ages ago? We don’t remember what happened in those former times, and in the future generations no one will remember what we have done back here.”
With this view of life and the world, I wonder how Solomon would answer these questions:
- How would you cope with the death of a child at age 8?
- How would you comfort a mother and father whose daughter of athletic promise became a quadriplegic as a teenager?
- Why were 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut?
- How do you make sense of 6 million Jews and 30 million people losing their lives in WWII?
- How would you explain the birth of Siamese twins or a mongoloid child to a perplexed couple?
What would you use to try and make sense out of dilemmas like this? What is your own personal world and life view that clarifies these questions?
All of us try to come to grips with questions like this by reaching back into ourselves for answers. What we come up with comes from our world and life view. Many people have never heard of a world and life view and would not know what it was if they did. But every one has a world and life view whether he knows it or not. What exactly s it?
A world and life view is your answer to explain all the reality you see around you. It explains your life and this life to you. It is the answers - adequate or not - that you have in your deepest being that help you understand everything you see and experience. It is your reference point. It interprets this life for you and tells you what it all means. It gives you answers to the questions I asked above about death, accidents, man’s inhumanity to man, and human events that make no sense. Your world and life view deciphers all that.
Now you may be asking, “If I have a world and life view, how did I get it?” You may have noticed that when you read those questions above, your mind was already processing some kind of answer. In other words, your world and life view was already at work for you, indicating that your mind was searching through its index for a response. Satisfactory or not, where did you get those answers that were formulating?
Some of them came from religious teaching you may have had. If you had no religious teaching, then maybe you read some philosophy or gleaned your views from a movie you saw, a book you read, or discussions you had listened to by others who made sense when they talked about these things. Maybe you just deduced your own answers to some of the difficult problems of life by your own observations. A world and life view can take root in your mind from a combination of many different sources. It may satisfy you or not. It may be correct, or it may not be.
My purpose here is to present the Christian world and life view and how it answers question like those I first asked. A world and life view that is of any value must not only give satisfactory answers, it must also be based on facts and reality. If it is, then it will do more than answer the EASY questions above. It will also speak truth about the HARD questions. The hard questions are the ones we spend our whole lives trying to plumb. These are the ones at the core of our being and the ones that really count. These are the uncertainties we encounter as teenagers that keep coming back throughout our lives and will be answering up until the day we die as we live out our existence.
I am talking about these questions:
- Who am I?
- Where did I come from?
- Why am I here?
- Why do I do what I do?
- Where am I going? What is going to become of me?
Those are the questions that any world and life view struggles to answer and needs to answer. The Christian world and life view excels here. It is found in the Bible, and it is easily summarized in 3 words: Creation, Fall, Redemption. You will want to remember those words for three reasons. First, if you are a Christian, they will guide you in how you should live your life as a believer. Secondly, they will help you answer life’s most perplexing events. Thirdly, they will answer the five basic questions of life that hound us about our purpose, origin, behavior, and destiny.
Based on the three words above, here is a summary of the Christian world and life view. This is where you start if you want to settle the quandaries of the human condition. Then, following this statement, you will find the answer to life’s fundamental questions, or the HARD questions.
Creation
“There is a Creator who made and rules over everything. We are made in His image and were made to worship Him, enjoy Him forever, and give Him glory, honor, and thanksgiving.
Fall
But we are fallen creatures because of Adam's sin, and we have failed to fulfill our purpose. Now we are under the curse of eternal death. Because we have failed, all of the creation was cursed and has been corrupted with us.
Redemption
However, the Creator sent His beloved Son, Jesus, to atone for our sins on the cross and redeem us by grace through faith in His Son so that we will live our lives unto God in thanksgiving. On the last day, Christ will stand as Judge over all the earth at the resurrection of the dead, redemption will extend ‘as far as the curse is found’, and ‘the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.’”
Who am I and where did I come from?
I am a creature made in the image of God.
Why am I here?
I am here to worship, enjoy, glorify, honor, and give thanksgiving, and live my life unto God my Creator.
Why do I do what I do?
I am fallen in sin because of Adam and am corrupted in all my ways.
Where am I going?
Unless I am redeemed by Christ the Savior from my sin, I will perish from God’s presence forever. But if I by grace trust in His Son, I will live with the Lord and enjoy Him forever in His eternal and righteous kingdom.