Wordliness

Last night in home group we finished our study of Worldliness - resisting the seduction of a fallen world (ed. C J Mahaney). Over the summer months we have been reading a chapter a week and then discussing what it taught. Did we agree or disagree, how would it affect our lives, how would we put it into practice etc...

In the final chapter the question of how to love the world is the subject, the challenge not to love the world but not to disengage from it either. It is a helpful corrective and one of the best chapters in a very good and challenging book. Jeff Purswell begins by challenging the reader to examine and correct their worldview (John 3:16; 17:18) we are to be those in the world but not of the world. Using the four markers; creation, fall, redemption and consummation he explains the Biblical worldview and some of the consequences and implications of this.

He then moves on to suggest that the Bible sets believers three tasks in terms of interaction with the world:
1. Enjoy the world - God has made the world, it witnesses to him we are to praise God for the world he has given us to enjoy but without loving or worshipping it. I guess I experienced something of this at U2, where so many were worshipping U2 I was struck by the amazing gift God gave us in music and the gifts he had given these 4 guys and praised God for his goodness and creation.

2. Engage the world - We have a tendency to compartmentalize life into spiritual and secular (interestingly an agenda society and the government seems keen to encourage) but this shouldn't be so, work, home leisure are all part of my worship of God.

3. Evangelize the world -We are witnesses - a witness simply takes the stand and tells the truth as he has known and experienced it. That was tremendously liberating for those who fear that they can't adequately explain the gospel - we are to work at our understanding - but we are to witness to what we have experienced, it doesn't have to be polished and slick.

Finally the book ends as most chapters did by looking at the cross which tells us who we are, interprets the world we live in, transforms our view of people and gives me purpose.

It has been a book that has been challenging and one of those that will go on my shelf to be re-read every 12-18months. Personally it is a great read but my hunch is that only when read with others and when we open up to allow others to keep us accountable to change will we do so most effectively.