Our children do not merely need to learn about the world; they need to learn to understand it under the authority of God.
A worldview is the way we understand reality: who God is, what man is, why the world exists, what is good, how we know the truth, and why we live. It is not an isolated opinion or just another subject; it is the set of convictions that shapes the way we think, judge, and act.
No one views the world from a completely neutral position. We all begin with certain beliefs about reality, even when we are not fully aware of them. Therefore, the question is not whether our children will have a worldview, but which worldview will govern their thinking and guide their lives.
From a Christian perspective, we recognize that God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of all things. Therefore, no sphere of life exists independently of His authority. The family, work, science, history, economics, art, politics, and knowledge itself all fall under the lordship of Jesus Christ. As Scripture declares, “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1, KJV).
This means that we cannot separate our faith from the way we understand the world. It is not enough to teach children to behave properly, memorize Bible verses, or learn certain doctrines. We must help them discern how God’s Word illuminates every area of life and how they ought to live before Him.
The Word of God Is Our Authority
We believe that the Bible is inspired by God, infallible, inerrant, authoritative, and sufficient for what God has revealed to us and for equipping us for every good work. It is not a book we consult only when we face spiritual problems; it is the authority that corrects our presuppositions, examines our judgments, and guides our understanding of reality.
For this reason, we do not begin by asking what our age thinks, what the majority accepts, or what seems convenient according to human standards. We begin by asking what God has said.
This does not mean that we despise observation, research, reason, or the study of creation. On the contrary, because the world belongs to God, we want to study it diligently. But we do not treat human reason as an authority independent of its Creator. We learn to think by recognizing that God is the source of all truth and that our understanding must submit to His Word.
Scripture does not merely teach us what to believe about God; it also instructs us how to live before Him. Its authority reaches our decisions, affections, habits, and responsibilities. Christian formation, therefore, is not simply about transmitting religious information, but about cultivating an entire life of obedience to the Lord.
Two Ways of Interpreting the World
At the deepest level, there is a conflict between interpreting reality on the basis of God’s revelation and claiming that man is his own ultimate authority. Scripture presents this opposition from the very beginning: either we heed God’s Word or we judge His Word by appealing to a rival authority.
Secular humanism, pagan religions, and other philosophies may differ profoundly from one another. Yet when their claims contradict revealed truth, they cannot become the standard governing Christian thought. We should not assume that an idea is true simply because it is popular, ancient, modern, or accepted by influential people.
This also requires us to examine our own ideas. Not everything we have inherited culturally is biblical, nor does every custom in our society deserve to be preserved. Christian parents must be willing to correct their own thinking in light of Scripture and teach their children to do the same.
The goal is not for our children merely to learn Christian answers, but to learn to think and live as disciples of Christ in everything they do.
Genesis: The Foundations of Our Understanding of the World
A biblical worldview begins by recognizing that God is the Creator and that the world is neither the product of chance nor an autonomous reality. The opening chapters of Genesis establish essential foundations for understanding who we are and what our responsibility is within creation.
Genesis 1–11 tells us about the origin of the world, the dignity of man as the image of God, the mandate to cultivate and govern creation under His authority, the entrance of sin and its consequences, divine judgment, and God’s preservation of humanity by His grace.
These events are not secondary details of the Christian faith. They provide us with fundamental categories for understanding human history, work, family, moral responsibility, sin, and hope. If we lose sight of these foundations, we will end up interpreting reality through categories foreign to God’s revelation.
For this reason, we affirm that Genesis should be received as part of the true history God has revealed. We must attend to its genre, context, and purpose while recognizing the continuity of its testimony with the rest of Scripture. We do not want to impose the assumptions of our age upon the Bible; rather, we want God’s Word to determine how we understand the beginning of all things.
What Does This Mean for the Formation of Our Children?
It means that we cannot be satisfied with our children merely accumulating knowledge, achieving good results, or developing useful skills. All these things have their place, but we must also ask what kind of people they are becoming, what they love, what they consider true, and before whom they recognize their accountability.
We want them to learn mathematics while recognizing God’s order and faithfulness; to study history while understanding human moral responsibility and divine providence; to develop the skills needed to work, create, and manage resources diligently; to learn to distinguish between justice and injustice; and to understand that their talents do not exist merely for their personal benefit, but to serve God and their neighbor.
This begins at home. Parents do not surrender their responsibility to form their children simply because other people participate in the process. We are called to teach them God’s Word diligently and to show them, through our own example, what it means to live under His authority (Deuteronomy 6:4–9).
At PVLC, we want to come alongside families in this task. We do not believe Christian formation should be confined to a single activity, a meeting, or a devotional moment. We seek to cultivate a community in which knowledge, character, work, and relationships are all understood in the light of God’s truth.
Our purpose is not to form people who live isolated from the world, but men and women who can live in it faithfully, discerningly, responsibly, and courageously—people who know that they belong to Christ and that their entire lives must answer to Him.
A biblical worldview does not mean giving God a place within our way of seeing the world. It means recognizing that the entire world belongs to Him and that, therefore, we must learn to see it, understand it, and live in it under His Word. To think God’s thoughts after Him.
“And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17, KJV).
