Ask yourself the following questions.  I dare you.

What words of condolence do you offer the grieving widow at the graveside?  How would you respond to a mandatory military conscription of your son?  Your daughter?  If you’re simply not prepared for parenthood, is it morally acceptable to abort your child?  If there’s a chance that a cure for Parkinson’s Disease might be found by harvesting tissues from a developing human being, do you?

If you’re absolutely positive that this is the man (or woman) for you, is it really necessary to wait for marriage before engaging in physical intimacy?  If your employee has given you 32 years of loyal service to the company, but last Tuesday it became economically advantageous to fire him, do you immediately do so?  Is corporal punishment an acceptable form of discipline in child-rearing, or is it always abusive?  When your marriage gets rough, and you’re sure that both you and your spouse would be happier with other people, is divorce an option?

The way you answer those intensely practical questions is a function of your faith — what you believe — what you regard to be true.  Well… what do you regard to be true, and how did you come to those conclusions? 

Samuel Johnson once wrote, “The greatest part of mankind have no other reason for their opinions than that they are in fashion.”

What about you?  What is the compass that orients you to questions of truth and falsehood?  What gives you your sense of right and wrong?  Are you just absorbing it (like osmosis) from TV?  Are you just living by the unexamined traditions that you inherited from your parents?  What is your roadmap for these kinds of questions?

At Cornerstone, we are learning that in the Bible God is giving us the tools we need to think fruitfully and maturely about all of the questions of our day.  The Bible doesn’t just instruct us about things like prayer, church, baptism, and heaven.  It also teaches us how to rightly approach matters dealing with science, technology, sexuality, education, marriage, justice, the arts, child-rearing, entertainment, work, the environment, economics, and all the other “real life” issues of our day. 

And there are three central, foundational themes to the Bible that are very helpful to us, as we seek to mature in our understanding of all of reality. 

CREATION — What does it mean that the whole world (including humanity) was created by God’s spoken word?  And what are the implications of the fact that everything was originally created “good”?

FALL — What does it mean that creation (which was originally good) has been perverted and distorted by sin?  What does it mean that every part of our humanness has now been tainted and twisted by the fall?  What does it mean that we are the source of the evil that is in this world?

REDEMPTION — According to the Bible, the person and work of Jesus Christ is the only cure that can save us (and this world!) from this evil.  What does it mean that Jesus restores the world back to its original good?  What does it mean that he re-creates creation by grace?

These three categories inform the Christian view of everything.  And I mean everything.  Come.  Let’s talk about it.

Note that the series of blog posts begun above will be indebted to Albert M.  Wolters’ excellent little book, Creation Regained.