A Marvelous Prospect

We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations

We’ve a story to tell to the nations, That shall turn their hearts to the right,

A story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light, …

Chorus: For the darkness shall turn to dawning, and the dawning to noonday bright;

And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth, the kingdom of love and light.

We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, That shall lift their hearts to the Lord,

A song that shall conquer evil, and shatter the spear and sword…

We’ve a message to give to the nations, that the Lord who reigns up above

Has sent us His Son to save us, And show us that God is love, …

We’ve a Savior to show to the nations, Who the path of sorrow has trod,

That all of the world’s great peoples Might come to the truth of God …

This is my 2^nd installment sharing with you my studies as a Centurion, Class of 2009 (http://www.breakpoint.org/generic.asp?ID=2748 ). I didn’t plan it, but as I considered what to say this month, the song title just jumped out of this month’s Centurions reading – (Re)Thinking Worldview – Learning to think, Live, and Speak in This World by J. Mark Bertrand. This article is an attempt to distill 250 dense pages into a quick essay.

Last month I stated that we’re in a culture war – for the hearts and minds of our families, friends, and neighbors. So what does that mean, exactly, and what are we called to do? First, we really need to know what it is that we believe. We must understand our worldview and how it fits rationally with the way the world is, unlike other worldviews. We need wisdom. But if we’re to effectively tell our story to the nations, we must be witnesses – both in what we say and what we do. (Hopefully in all we say and do!)

One way to identify any worldview: Christian, Marxist, or postmodern, is to see how it describes our relationship with God, with one another, and with the world. Abraham Kuyper described our Christian beliefs this way in a lecture at Princeton Seminary in 1898:

“For our relation to God: an immediate fellowship of man with the Eternal, independently of priest or church. For the relation of man to man: the recognition in each person of human worth, which is his by virtue of his creation after the Divine likeness, and therefore of the equality of all men before God and his magistrate. And for our relation to the world: the recognition that in the whole world the curse is restrained by grace, that the life of the world is to be honored in its independence, and that we must, in every domain, discover the treasures and develop the potencies hidden by God in nature and in human life.”

Believing this then determines who we are and how we behave, or at least how we desire to behave, or should behave.

Say what? OK – our relationship with God? First, he exists, and we have fellowship with him – independent of priest or church. And man? Made in God’s image, with that supernatural divine spark, each one of us has dignity and worth. That’s why we are pro-life and why we fight against “assisted suicide” and why we help the hurting in Cary and around the world. And the rest of our world and the universe? It too is God’s creation, and it glorifies him and speaks to his incredible creative nature, and we are to be its explorers and stewards.

What then of wisdom and witness? I reckon they will have to wait for future posts – stay tuned!