Without a “Thus saith the Lord,” there is no objective morality. How can you say anything is wrong? Do you “feel” that oppression is bad? Why? You may as well feel bad about a spider eating a cricket. You want me to feel bad about injustice? Why? That’s like asking me to feel bad because a rabbit dug up a flower. Yet, that’s the kind of muddled thinking that makes people claim, “I don’t know what a woman is; I don’t know what marriage is, or what a family is; I don’t know if that’s a human being in the womb; I don’t know if animals are different than humans.”
If it seems that society is rushing into ever more bizarre beliefs and behaviors, it’s not by coincidence that at the same time, it’s abandoning biblical wisdom. People aren’t sure how to think, let alone what to think. Scripture warns us: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise…because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (Ephesians 5:15-17, ESV).
These last days inaugurated by Christ are undoubtedly desperately evil. We live in a corrupt generation (Acts 2:40) and perilous times (2 Timothy 3:1) when people don’t think correctly because they have not learned the way of God through Christ. This leads to moral free fall and lawlessness (Ephesians 4:18-21) because beliefs have behavioral consequences.
I often say: To change the way you act, you have to change the way you think; to change the way you think, you have to change what you fill your mind with–is it the world or the Word? If you don’t open your Bible, you leave yourself wide open to foolishness. Wisdom is seeing things from God’s perspective–it’s wisdom from above, not below. But if people don’t seek that wisdom, then their minds are darkened and their thinking clouded.
Still, another survey came out this past week that backed up what we already are seeing–that a biblical worldview is closer to extinction (at least in Western culture). This survey said that 96% of Americans do not hold a biblical worldview–that is, viewing the world through the lens of Scripture. This decline is even happening among those who identify as born-again Christians (from 19% pre-pandemic to 13% now). Yet our faith is not to be just religious belief that relates to spiritual and supernatural things, divorced from the rest of life. It’s the filter through which we view reality. A biblical worldview is seeing things from God’s perspective. It’s the grid for discerning what’s right and wrong, true and false, good and bad.
Yet, Christians are being more affected by society than society is being affected by Christians. Why? Because few are serious about knowing Scripture. They’re not reading or studying the Bible. They’re not being taught in their churches or trained in Bible studies or classes. This is why there’s so much foolishness not only in society but even in so many churches. And it’s not going to get better (apart from divine intervention) because younger people are being isolated from biblical thought and not being brought up in church. They’re being submerged and trained in anti-biblical thinking, which makes them the most aggressive at rejecting biblical principles.
“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ…” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This means we let His Word shape our thinking. Biblical thinking informs us not just on the “what,” but also on the “why.” For example, many are pro-life because of science and logic. They value unborn life because it is clearly a separate human being from the mother, deserving of the right to life. You don’t need the Bible to tell you that’s true. But ultimately, I’m pro-life because God is the Creator. God tells me in His Word that He knits together every person in the womb, making them in His image. I’m pro-life because of the Incarnation–God entered this world as an embryo through a womb. Abortion is wrong because of God. That provides a theological foundation for your thinking.
Christians who truly hold to a biblical worldview behave differently from those who don’t. They go against the flow. They live right side up instead of upside down. They’re not being conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of their minds (Romans 12:2).