Worldview

Our worldview is not just how we see the world, but how we align ourselves to our view. Our worldview are all of the cultural influences that help us to put the world into meaningful categories. These categories give us reasons for our thoughts, our emotions, our actions, our beliefs, and how we spend our time and money.

We may be aware of much of what consists of our worldview but there is much of our worldview that is subconscious. It is only when how or why we do things gets challenged that we begin to look at the deeper reasons. These are the reasons that entire cultures will despise other cultures and yet at the same time seem ridiculous to a third person.

There are natural life events that challenge and form our worldview. These happen through cross-cultural interactions or dramatic life events that cause us to question the way we see and interact with the world.

This brings us to the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17. The man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to have eternal life. This is often a question we ask ourselves: What do we need to do to truly have life that lasts. So Jesus gives him an answer. Basically Jesus responds by quoting the ten commandments. And as many of us would respond, the rich young ruler thought he was doing fairly well at those commandments and was generally a good person. In the same story in Matthew 19:20, the man still wonders what he lacks. This means that he has done all of these good things (or not done any of these bad things) and yet he still didn’t have real life. There was still something missing in his life.

Then Jesus says to him that there is one more thing. He tells the rich man to sell all of his possessions, give them to the poor and then follow Jesus. This wasn’t something the ruler thought was possible, or something he really wanted to do. So the young man went home saddened.

Now the young man should not have gone home sad because Jesus answered his question and told him how to have life that can never be taken away. But the man was sad because he was unable to do this. Jesus then begins a dialogue with his disciples: It is so hard to a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

This passage has been used in history to say that we must sell all that we have in order to follow Jesus or used to guilt the rich into giving to the church. It has also been used within our more wealthy communities to talk about how money cannot be an idol for us and therefore keeping us from following Jesus. This is often coupled with 1 Timothy 6:10 where the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. So as long as I don’t love it as much as I love Jesus then it is alright to have it.

However, these passages are not talking as much about having money or not having money. These passages are about worldview. The more people I meet and the more I live, the more I understand that those who are wealthy have a certain mindset (I know this is a generalization that is not true for every single person). In order to be wealthy there is a certain way of being, doing things, and thinking about oneself and the world. This mindset usually leads to maximizing profit and making money. And this process usually comes at a cost to another person. It is a worldview in which there are certain actions and thoughts involved that are related to the idea of making more money.

I know what you are thinking, “But I am a Christian and so I might have money but I love Jesus.” This may be so, but I have known many Christians who have made their money by taking advantage of other people. Likewise, I have known very generous followers of Jesus who are blessed with resource in order to bless others (although this is rare). What I am saying is what Jesus is saying: It is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God, not impossible.

Jesus was challenging the rich young man’s worldview. This is what Jesus does for all of us. When Jesus invites us to follow Him, our worldview gets challenged. The kingdom of God is a worldview -seeing ourselves, thinking about ourselves, how we see and respond to the world the way God does. This also means seeing our money and resource the way He sees it, and using it the way He wants to use it.

Therefore, Jesus is right. It is difficult to have a kingdom of God worldview if something else is determining our worldview.

The invitation for us is Luke 9:23-25, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?”

When Jesus invites us to the kingdom worldview, there is only one response: yes. When we die so does our worldview. We allow God to lead us in a new life, a new way of being, a new worldview. This is what Jesus invites us to when he says, “Come, follow me!” This is more than thinking positively about ourselves or claiming our prosperity. It is about seeing the world as God sees it.

Our invitation is one which the rich young ruler could not accept, to see our world as God sees it and not how we want it to be. Our invitation is to be kingdom people who embody a kingdom worldview.