Worldview Matters – Beware of these things!

Worldview Matters
Guest Post by Holly Roe
Part 2 of a 3 Part series

(see yesterday’s post)

We are increasingly seeing “progressive”church leaders and influencers promoting human reasoning that questions the authority of God’s Word and the historic understanding of scripture. (Do you see it?)

They are driven by self-interest, self-gratification and their messages are often accompanied by immoral lifestyles and blatant false teaching.

I made a public statement of warning recently after discovering an influencing leader who was espousing unbiblical teachings and ideas and someone said, ”I know that person you are questioning has a heart for dialogue and would be open to discussion.”

“Dialogue” there’s that word again!

Here’s the thing though—Discussion for the purpose of gently bringing someone back to truth is always something we should be willing to engage in as a mission of apologetics to defend the faith and bring light and truth to darkness. It is very important, however, that we be studied when engaging because continual human dialogue about things that God has already made clear is an age-old trick Satan has been using from the very beginning.

Remember the human reasoning and dialogue that took place in the very first conversation in scripture? The evil one uses a plan that’s been working from the beginning of time. It often looks something like this—

STEP 1-Sneakily make them question what God actually said. (Did God really say that?)
Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”

STEP 2-Put doubts in their mind about whether God is literal or not about what he said. (Surely God didn’t mean it like that)
Genesis 3:4 “But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die”

STEP 3: Use human selfishness, human reasoning and deception to lead them away from holiness (she’s now thinking…it looks good, I’ll benefit and gain knowledge by taking what I feel like is entitled to me. I’ll be my own person and be true to myself.)
Genesis1:6- “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it’s fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.”

You see where dialogue gets us? Our human reasoning stinks and adding more humans into the conversation doesn’t make it any better or more true.

If God said something, we cannot change that truth based on our feelings and thoughts just like Eve couldn’t make it okay to take and eat of the fruit by dialogue and feeling that it was okay.

Natasha Crain summarizes the premise of this idea as it relates to a secular Worldview very well in her book “Faithfully Different.” She says, about the (felt) relevance of secularism that “Feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, judging is the ultimate sin, and God is the ultimate guess.” (52).

These core tenants call to our human nature but no matter how tempting it might be, we can never let our feelings to be the ultimate guide to truth.

If I’m born a biological female but feel like a male, that does not make it true that I am a male. My DNA and every fiber of my being is female. If I die and they dig up my bones 100 years from now, my bones will prove that I was female. My chromosomes cannot be changed and no matter how I feel about it, I cannot control that.

What if I feel worthless and like God does not love me, does that make it true? Absolutely not! We can’t trust our feelings or follow our heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick…” Jeremiah 17:9. What we can trust is the Word of God. If a sovereign almighty God is capable of creating an entire universe and everything in it, He is also capable of preserving His Word. Cultural pressures are pushing Christians to question the authority and sufficiency of God’s Word and conform to secular beliefs.

And we absolutely have to recognize this and be on guard about this! And we have to guard our families against this.

We will talk more about how to do that tomorrow!