Scripture offers practical and accessible wisdom that enables us to consider everything we encounter in the world from a godly perspective โ we call this biblical worldview. Hereโs how to cultivate it.
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We live in a world full of ideas.
Whether weโre watching a movie, listening to music, scanning friendsโ social media feeds, indulging in a YouTube fave, or parsing the dayโs news, weโre constantly bombarded with ideas, stories, and narratives. Some of them, we may agree with. Some points of view rub us the wrong way. Others, well, weโre not sure what we think.ย
Thatโs why having a consistent frame of reference is so important: It helps us to make sense of all those ideas flying at us.ย
Trying to sort through all those ideas can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, Scripture offers practical and accessible wisdom that enables us to consider everything we encounter in the world from a godly perspective. We call that aย biblical worldview, a way of seeing and understanding the competing ideas we might encounter in a given dayโwhether itโs in entertainment, the news, or social media.
If I Were a Worldview, What Would I Be?
And the people who are creating the entertainment, news, and content I mentioned above all have a worldview, too. Anything we watch or listen to or consume has a perspective that addresses some basic questions:ย
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- What is good and worthy of praise?
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- Whatโs bad and to be rejected?
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- What is most important in life?
You may not realize it, but every piece of entertainment you consume is dealing with these questions! Even something as seemingly forgettable as a car commercial has a worldview. Every car commercial suggests that if you buy this bright, shiny new car, your life will be better. Thatโs a worldview, one that reinforces the ultimately empty promise that true happiness in life comes through consumption and acquiring stuff.ย
As we pay attention to the ideas floating out there, we begin to see that the people delivering those ideas care about some things and not others. Sometimes itโs obvious. Other times, itโs subtle. But if you dig a bit, thereโs always a worldview being expressed. It embraces some values and perhaps rejects others.

What Can Taylor Swift Teach Us About Worldview?
Letโs take singer Taylor Swiftโs music as an example. Early in her singing career, she had a very Disney-esque, romantic perspective on love. Thatโs super obvious in her 2010 song โToday Was a Fairytale.โ As Taylor got older, though, she made the news a lot for a series of failed, high-profile romances. So, we can see her anger, cynicism and a more casual attitude to sexual relationships reflected in songs like โBad Bloodโ and โLook What You Made Me Do.โ Those songs deliver a much edgier message, one that reflects Taylorโs changing worldview as she processed her own struggles and disappointments in life.
Those are just a couple of examples. But you can take any bit of popular culture and observe the main narrative it illustrates and reinforces.
In summary, a worldview is a way of looking at life that helps us make sense of it. Itโs usually a patchwork of ideas, beliefs, and feelings all stitched together by our experiences. And these days, worldviews are often described today using the word narrative, which gets at the fact that our perspective on life is, in many ways, story-like.
How Jesus Shapes Our Biblical Worldview
Everyone has a worldview, a perspective on reality. In fact, you canโt not have one! And when we come into relationship with Jesus Christ, he begins to reshape our hearts, minds, and souls. We are justified by faith in him in a moment, but the process of sanctificationโof growing to be more like himโtakes a lifetime.
As we begin to view reality through the prism of our Christian faith, our worldview is shaped and transformed, becoming more coherent and integrated because we have a unifying frame of reference. As such, that deepening Christian worldview enables us to think clearly about competing understandings of how we make sense of lifeโunderstandings that are everywhere in popular culture.
We also grow in our Christian worldview by reading and thinking deeply about Scripture. There, we see two different paths toward making sense of life and everything in it: one shaped by the world and one shaped by Godโs truth.
Laying the Foundation
In Ephesians 5:15-17, the Apostle Paul writes, โLook carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord isโ (ESV).
We might be tempted to believe that the ideas and values of the world donโt influence us. But Paul taught differently. He understood that the ways of the world bend us toward โevil,โ toward things in opposition to God. In this passage, Paul encourages us to pay attention (โLook carefully how you walkโ) to the ways the world might be shaping us, and compare what we see there to how God would have us live (โunderstand what the will of the Lord isโ).
Paulโs words in Philippians 4:8 give us a great starting place for evaluating the ideas, images, and stories we encounter in our entertainment and engagement with culture: โFinally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these thingsโ (ESV).
These two passages of Scripture begin to lay the foundation for cultivating a biblical worldview with regard to our entertainment and content choices.

Building on Your Biblical Worldview Foundation
Hopefully, youโve been able to see here that learning to see your entertainment and media choices from a biblical worldview doesnโt have to be difficult. Mostly, it involves a willingness to move from being a passive consumer to actively evaluating the ideas we see.
Then we begin to practice asking basic questions like the ones above: Whatโs the main message here? Whatโs shown to be positive? Whatโs negative? And then we can add this question: How does that worldview compare to what I believe?
As you and your family start asking and discussing questions like these together, youโll be cultivating a biblical worldviewโand you might just have some great conversations along the way, too.
An Example of a Biblical Worldview
You want to talk about someone who kept a biblical worldview despite living in a culture that was anything but? Check out the stories of Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (better known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) in Daniel 1-3. Over and over, Daniel and his friends faced pressure to conform to the ways of Babylon during the exile. But they stayed true to their faith and God was able to use them to make an extraordinary impact! God can use you in amazing ways, too!