The waves of information crash, seeking to drown me. Everyone is passionate. Everyone has a different opinion. And the anger and the fear and the intensity are so strong and so overwhelming that sometimes I just want to put my fingers in my ears: I don’t care. I can’t know anything for sure so just shut up.
But disconnecting isn’t going to help the cause of Christ or humanity or my own soul.
Why do I believe what I believe? There has probably never before been a more important time to ask this question.
I am committed to finding truth. How do I discern what to read, who to trust, what to think? Here are my thoughts.
- My worldview is always, always the beginning.
Where did we come from? What is my purpose? What went wrong with the world? How can it be fixed?
I took those questions by the throat and wrestled with them for a number of years before I settled on the worldview presented in the Bible. And how I answer these big questions filters down into how I answer all of the smaller questions. But those big questions have to be answered first.
Here’s an important clarification: Using a biblical worldview to form my opinions is vastly different from cherry picking Bible verses. Individual verses can say anything you want them to say, which is crazy dangerous. It’s like giving a sheriff’s badge to a six year old. Lots of authority, absolutely no wisdom.
For example, when someone writes that 2 Corinthians 3:18 is telling Christians we shouldn’t wear masks during a pandemic, that’s, well, abhorrent. The Bible actually doesn’t say anything about masks. But it does have a lot to say about the role of government and how to love your neighbor. Connect those dots, and I can form an opinion on the matter. But that’s way different than pulling out some random verse and making it say what I want.
This means I must know the Bible. All of it, and really, really well.
- I must ruthlessly scrutinize my own bias.
The temptation to believe what I want to believe is ridiculously strong. This is a problem. I have to ask, Do I want to believe what makes me feel safe and merry and smug? Or do I really want the truth?
Do I believe this because I am simply afraid? Or because it feels lofty to be rebellious? Am so I disgusted by the messenger that I don’t want to consider the message? Or am I just too ticked off to consider an alternative?