The LifeNote

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“For Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.”  (NRSV)

 

             Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum physics have given us a new view on “things visible and invisible.” There seems to be much we cannot see, but that doesn’t mean nothing is there or what we can’t see doesn’t matter. It just means our eyes are limited in their capability to see everything. Jesus told us that a long, long time ago. It takes faith to believe in what we cannot see.

             Not only do our eyes affect what we see, our mindsets or worldviews affect what we see as well. Our worldview determines what we are permitted to believe, and what we believe affects how we behave. Identifying our worldview is vital to our own understanding of why we believe what we believe and why we make some of the choices we make. Some of our judgments about the world might change if we decide our worldview needs to be altered. When this happens, some of our behavior will change too.

             The Tenth Step in a Twelve Step program instructs us to “Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong to promptly admit it.

” Today, instead of looking at individual things we do, let’s look at our worldview and see how it might affect our choices. The ancient worldview, the one found in the Bible, held that whatever happened on earth also happened in heaven and vice versa. There was a spiritual component to every material reality and there was a physical consequence for every spiritual reality. If there was a war on earth, there was a war in heaven, for example.

             This worldview was not just a biblical worldview, it was the current worldview at the time the Bible was written. Around the second century after Christ, the spiritualist worldview developed. This view held that matter was evil and spirit was good. From this view we get the idea we need to be rescued from the physical realm. This world view is found in Gnosticism, as well as in cults teaching suicide as an escape. It is also the basic view behind those whose emphasis is on “getting into heaven.”

            

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