Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Psalm 119:105
In the summer of 2005, between my senior year of college and my first year of seminary, I served on the staff of Camp Agape, a summer camp ministry of an Evangelical Free Church in Wauconda, Illinois. The week before camp began, the church’s pastor invested several days in the staff, which was comprised primarily of recent college graduates—all of whom were my friends from university. On the first day of training, the pastor directed us to open our Bibles, overcome our reservations about writing in them, and underline Colossians 2:8, which reads, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Having graduated the previous month from a secular, liberal arts university, I recall reflecting on how relevant that passage was at that moment.
Fast forward nearly two decades, and God’s Word continues to be timely and relevant precisely because it is true. Reformer John Calvin envisioned the Word of God as a pair of reading glasses:
For just as eyes, when dimmed with age or weakness or by some other defect, unless aided by spectacles, discern nothing distinctly; so, such is our feebleness, unless Scripture guides us in seeking God, we are immediately confused. (John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.xiv.1)
The truth is that mortal human beings can only see dimly when it comes to spiritual matters. We grasp for knowledge of God like those groping in the dark. God’s Word alone provides the light to pierce through our darkness and reveal God to us. In addition to illuminating our understanding of God, Scripture reveals to us the world that God made. This edition of the Epistle explores varying worldviews with the hope that, as Christians, we will grow in a biblical worldview. A worldview is simply the lens we peer through to bring life into focus and help us make sense of the world. Like a lens, our worldview is invisible to us, filled with implicit assumptions about what is ultimately true and how the world works. Rarely do individuals step back to examine these assumptions, yet our worldviews powerfully shape how we interpret and act in the world. For Christians, Scripture is not only the lens by which we come to know God, as Calvin suggested, but also the lens through which we interpret and make sense of the world. A biblical worldview allows the light of God to be revealed through Christ Jesus and in everything else.
Contemporary Western culture is rumbling with the tremors of competing worldviews, each vying for dominance. Will dim and hollow human philosophy shape our worldview? Or will it be shaped by the One who fashioned the world and revealed Himself to us through His enduring Word?
