Choosing to Live with a Biblical Foundation

Introduction –

This post series provides some general principles and Scripture references for choosing to live with a Biblical foundation, especially related to topics seen within the context of today’s ‘health and wellness’ trends.

It is written for people who desire to live a life committed to the living God, the Maker of heaven and earth. It is for the people who value the direction given by God in His Word, the Bible.

Accessibility Note: We recognize that it can be difficult for some people to read much on a screen. To hear this post read by Joy, you might play an audio version of the text instead of reading: (Audio version coming hopefully in the new year, the Lord willing!)

Teaching Note: This is one of our posts which is also being put into a downloadable printable version that can be used for teaching purposes such as for discipleship, individual, or small group Bible studies in church or the home. To learn more about this feature, please go to this page (linked here, the Lord willing, in the next few weeks or so), where you can find the links to the free student/teacher printables for this post as well as others as they are added.

This particular series is suggested as the first one to go through. This was a longer piece of writing that is divided into 4 parts/posts. The main headings are:

• Understand How to Love Like God Loves (e.g. interacting with people of different views)
• Understand How to Read the Bible (e.g. finding spiritual truth) – PART 1
• Who is God? (both right and wrong views of Who God is) – PART 2
• Who are Humans? (both right and wrong views of what people are) – PART 3
• How People Can Relate to God (reconciled to God, prayer) – PART 4

Worldview

A worldview is a perspective on how we understand things that happen in our world. It is helpful to remind ourselves what a Christian worldview is to be, to study our foundation from the perspective of what is taught in whole of Scripture, the Word of God.

Sometimes we call this “Biblical Christianity” (rather than calling it just “Christianity”, which allows for a variety of opinions from people/groups claiming to be Christian in some beliefs and values). We are not just interested in what “other Christians” say about a topic; what we really want and need to know is what God says about it in His Word, the Bible.

We believe the Bible (God’s Word) is not just inspired by God to be a good Book for us to read. We trust it for the instruction God provides us in it. We believe God gives us direction in His Word for how we should live too. We can say that it has authority (is authoritative) for us today because it comes from the living and eternal God Who loves us personally and wants good for us.

How then, should we, as Christians, interact with people of other worldviews?

Understand How to Love Like God Loves

This foundation, understanding how to love like God loves, is explained very well in an episode of Back to the Bible with Dr. Woodrow Kroll.

As we learn more about loving like God does, we learn that it means loving what He loves, as well as not loving what He does not love.

I highly recommend listening to an audio that will be, the Lord willing, linked below. (It had been posted by BTTB on a platform that they have since discontinued; I’m hoping it will be posted by one of two other ministries and will update this page when I know about that. Meanwhile, I’ll still mention it.) This audio is especially good for learning or reminding ourselves of the generalities of how we are to live as a Christian and interact with others in our world, including those who have different spiritual teachings.

The episode was based on 2 John (as well as related Bible passages).

AUDIO: An episode from “Loving Like God” (series by Woodrow Kroll, Back to the Bible, 2008)- “Receiving a Full Reward”. Length = 25 minutes.

Understand How to Read the Bible

Our Standard for Belief and Practice

We must have our foundation for authority in knowing what is truth or error, in the BIBLE. If it isn’t, we will have problems in how we think and decide for right and wrong. It isn’t just up to “whatever I feel” is good.

• Christ commands God’s people to “Search the Scriptures” (John 5:39).
• When ‘unfolded’, God’s Word gives light and understanding to simple-minded (Psalm 119:130). We all need to have answers for our faith (1 Peter 3:15, Psalm 119:42, Proverbs 15:28, 22:19-21).
• We also need God’s Word to help us to not stray into wrong beliefs (2 Corinthians 11:3, Psalm 119:11).
• The Word of God is also called the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:11). Without knowing what God’s Word says, we have no sword to use to fight temptation and evil. Instead, we would be more open to attack from our spiritual enemy and less-able to stand for what is right.

The Bible is our standard for what is truth and what is error. This is because it came from God Himself and He intended it to be for our benefit (2 Peter 1:19-21, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 15:4, Matthew 4:4, John 17:17, Isaiah 40:8, 1 Thessalonians 2:13).

We need to trust what the Bible says and apply its truths to our lives appropriately.

How to Read It –

1. Read the Bible in a plain, ordinary-person-reading manner.
   • You do not need to be an educated scholar to understand it. The people who first understood the Bible were generally NOT scholars. 1 Corinthians 1:26 says that not many who were wise according to the world’s standards (i.e. educated scholars) were called to serve God. (And those of us who do have that sort of background ourselves can be thankful for that little letter “m” in the phrase “not many”.)
   • God’s Spirit helps us understand the Scripture. You might pray like the Psalmist did, “Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.” (Psalm 119:18. “Law” is known as another term for the Word of God.)
2. Know what the Bible means by looking at Scripture as a whole, not just a single verse.
   • It must be “in harmony” or in agreement throughout it as a whole and something could be clearer to you in a related passage of Scripture. (Since all of it comes from the God of truth, there can be no contradictions.)
   • Read it in its context of how it would have been understood by the original audience such as the human authors penning the words down on paper. And read it in context of the surrounding verses.
   • Figurative language is there and so is symbolism. But something to keep in mind is that symbols in the Bible are explained within the Bible itself (or were very commonly-understood facts by the original audience in that part of the world. In other words, it wasn’t obscure to them.

Study It –

You, in your time period and culture, might want to study more background to understand more in-depth what they would have readily understood, depending on the topic or language structure.

But His Word, taught to you by the Holy Spirit illuminating it for God’s people, IS understandable and preserved for you in your generation.) You shouldn’t think you need to come up with some creativity to figure out what God wants you to know in His Word – He’s figured it out for you and put the answers in there already.

Yes, you might need to search to find related passages in the Bible (e.g. cross-referencing) and all of us should do that as we grow in our knowledge of God.

Trust It –

Because it comes to us from the true God, we can be confident that the Bible has ALL that we need to know within it for spiritual truth!

• Spiritual truth is only found in knowing our God and the Word that He has given us (the Bible). But the wrong worldview wants to change people’s minds to think that wisdom and truth and power can be achieved through human efforts.
  • ALL the spiritual truth that God wanted us to know is found in the Bible. There is never a spiritual truth revealed that is just from His enemies, those who oppose His ways (Psalm 5:4, Psalm 94:20, Malachi 2:17, etc.). The only bits of spiritual truth that one might ever find in a pagan book only can be repeating something that is first from in the Bible.
    • God never instructs us to find His spiritual truths in the beliefs of pagans – quite the opposite – we’re to avoid looking there! God doesn’t want us ensnared by false beliefs or walking in paths of temptation and destruction.
    • (My dad used to repeat a line that he had heard from a Bible teacher – about not seeking to find a gold nugget in the garbage dump but rather digging for it in the mine of treasure.)
    • Do not think that “if” the Bible “doesn’t specifically talk about ____”, that it’s something that God doesn’t care either way if you follow it! God cares about things which influence us!
  • Thus, if a so-called spiritual “truth” is presented to us that is NOT also mentioned as godly truth within the principles of the Bible, we must automatically reject it – because ALL the spiritual truth that God wanted us to know is found IN the Bible!

Learn What is Good versus Wrong Paths

How can we know what the Bible might have to say about principles related to something we face today?

• Look the TOPIC up and find out a general definition/description (if needed) – and ask yourself….
  • Where did this idea or technique or practice come from?
  • Is it a “spiritual” practice?
  • If so, you might especially want to read:
    • Deut. 18:9ff
    • Jer. 10:2-3
    • Prov. 4:14-15
    • Psalm 34:14
    • Psalm 36:2-4
    • Psalm 97:10
    • Psalm 119:101
    • Psalm 141:4
    • Prov. 11:27
    • Isaiah 5:20
    • Romans 12:9
    • 1 Cor. 15:33
    • Eph. 5:6-11
  • These are a selection of verses to help make some decisions. There is another list on the post entitled, “I’m Free! (Freedom in Christ)”, linked here shortly if you want to read about this aspect further.

Obey It and Possess Its Truth for Yourself –

James 1:22a reminds us to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only”.

Jesus explains the importance of putting His word into practice, of obeying it:

“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” Luke 6:46-49

In the parable of the Sower and the Seed, Jesus said, “Take heed how you hear [the Word of God].” Luke 8:18 (cf. Luke 8:11).

David Guzik’s commentary (found in E-Sword) on Luke 8:18 says that there is a danger to hear God’s Word in a “too-passive way; without engaging the word with the mind, the heart, and the will. To be hearers only of the word, and not to be also doers of the word..

“For whoever has, to him more will be given:” More what?

• More desire to hear.
• More understanding of what you hear.
• More personal possession of the blessings you hear about.

…”Even what he seems to have”: Sometimes what people think they have spiritually, they only seem to have.”(end of Guzik’s quote, formatting mine). (He mentions the examples of the Pharisees’ attitude and of the Laodiceans (Rev. 3:14-22) who felt they were rich or good-enough that they didn’t need anything else from Christ.)

More about the Bible:

For a 15-minute summary about the Bible, you can go to “This We Believe | Theodore H. Epp | Back to the Bible India”. (My grandpa often listened to Mr. Epp and this summary is one of the simplest, short ones that I know of.)

Here is the children’s song called “The Wonderful Word of God” (written by Vernon H. Stromberg, 1964) sung by my daughter. The lyrics fit well with this post!

(Scripture verses are quoted on this page in NKJV, unless otherwise noted.)