A Point of View

Genesis 1:26-28, "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image,

in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."  27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." 

This week I would like to begin a conversation that surrounds a different evangelical worldview. 

A worldview is a way that we are socially fashioned by all the educational elements around us [parents, grandparents, neighbors, other children that we may grow up with, the schools that we attend] that give us an understanding (right or wrong) about how our world works. It is what is assumed. 

I'll take a third nation worldview to help us understand this. For example, in some African countries you don't build a house under certain trees because that is where a certain powerful spirit lives. You don't leave your well uncovered at night because evil water spirits come up at night and rob the spirits of those in the village as they sleep and take them down the well. 

As Americans we think this non-sense superstition. We ask, "How is that possible?" The answer:  From their perspective you are the  one who needs to get a reality check. Everyone knows that this is true. There is no asking "why." It just is. 

A worldview is the basis for all we think and do. It governs our belief system, our value system, and our actions. 

In regard to Christianity, one missions author has stated that if you do not change the worldview of a person, they end up with syncretism - adding Jesus to their other gods. It is actually a false conversion because there is no real transformation [this will be my larger point].

In relationship to this, I would like to challenge the Western Protestant worldview that a salvation conversation begins with sin and the cross. 

I think the Jesus "event" is actually in the middle of our conversation and that we actually should be taking people back to Genesis 1 in order to truly reach them for the kingdom of God.

Starting with sin, in my opinion, makes the redemptive story solely about Jesus dying so that I don't go to Hell. It would be very easy to embrace this "act' without following through on the total transformative work of God. 

I had a brother tell me that he asked a Buddhist if he believed in Jesus. He said, "yes." My brother then asked if he believed that Jesus died for his sins. He said, "Yes." So my brother said, "So you are a Christian." He said, "No." 

Do you see the problem? A belief in a set a propositions did not change the worldview of this person. He still held on to his pagan worship but simply added Jesus. 

Rarely does anyone tell me that Jesus died so that I could become, through the transformative work of the Holy Spirit, what I have been created to be - a man created in the image of God for eternal fellowship.

I would love to hear what others may think about starting our

evangelism conversations with the fact that a Creator, who we call God, created us in his own image, in his own likeness, and for relationship. 

Let's just pause and consider that wonderful act and gift.