The Absolute Necessity of a Biblical Worldview

I am convicted by what I read in Paul. Listen to him: "Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me" (Col. 1:28-29, ESV).

Dr. Bobby Gupta of HBI in Chennai, one of our missionaries, as well as the Fiols in Dera Dun, both came to me with the same call. We have a revival going on, but in many ways it is a mile wide and an inch deep. We need strong Bible and doctrinal teaching. Our students need to be equipped in theology, in church history, in Bible languages, in knowing how to handle the Word of truth. Thus, as he asked me to do, I taught covenant theology as well as how to preach expositional Bible messages. I taught pastors who had no formal education, and I taught those preparing for a Ph.D.

For 20 times in two weeks I taught and taught and taught. And I kept thinking, I can’t wait to get home because God is showing me that the church in America, and my own dear flock, must continue to glory in the truths of the Word of God. We must not settle for a mile wide and an inch deep, should that be the case with us.

And so Paul toiled. And so I would seek to. I will never forget Dr. James Montgomery Boice telling me, "Mike, the pulpit deserves the best a man can give. The pulpit deserves the best preparation, the finest scholarship. Our people must be instructed in the doctrines of the Word of God if there is going to be a deeper penetration into our culture."

That is what I find in this Book of Colossians. But I also find something more.

Faithfulness in Proclaiming Jesus Through Living

In chapter 3, Paul puts legs on his theology. All of the teaching about the pre-eminence of Christ in all things leads to this: "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1-3, ESV).

Our worldview is best lived out through not only teaching but faithful living. Paul mentions putting off immorality and

putting on "compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another…" (3:12,13). He speaks of forgiveness and love. Paul speaks of these things because these things bring peace in the midst of this old world.

I did a lot of teaching in India, but we all did a lot of learning. And the place we learned the most may have been the Children’s Home in Dera Dun. This Presbyterian orphanage is the home to children of lepers. I will never forget how, after more than a week of spiritual oppression and living in the non-stop chaos that marks so much of India, we felt the peace of Jesus Christ in that place. The little children were dressed, happy, fed and were learning of Christ and living Christ. We were calmed by the peace of Jesus in that community.

And this is how we live out a biblical worldview—in the peacefulness of relationships that have been formed through God’s grace at work in our own lives.

A biblical worldview is the foundation that creates new life and transforms human culture. And we have learned three truths from Colossians about this worldview: that a biblical worldview is established on truth, assaulted by lies and advanced in faithfulness.

My wife and I—indeed our whole team—can never forget Heidi. Heidi is a missionary with Mission to the World who was sent out to be with a church planting team in Northern India. Her job? She reaches out to the slums. When we speak of slums in India, there is nothing—nothing—that compares to it here (and I have seen some of the worst slums in New Orleans, Detroit and Los Angeles). The worst cannot compare with these.

This 28-year-old young, single woman from Virginia goes into these slums and shares Christ by caring for abused wives who are being prodded with sticks and beaten routinely. She cares for the open wounds of children who live in the same tent with goats and chickens. She teaches the Bible on garbage piles. She is bringing a new worldview of the love of Jesus, the One True God, to the poorest of the poor whose lives are established on the worship of hundreds of gods. People are being saved, and little by little—admittedly it is like a trickle—a new world is emerging.

In the midst of the garbage of our lives, produced by sin and the idols of our own lives, the gospel of the pre-eminence of Jesus Christ comes. This is Heidi’s worldview. This is Heidi’s hope. This is India’s hope—and America’s hope. It is a hope well founded, for it is the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ.