Decision Making God’s Way
DECISION MAKING GOD’S WAY
Gary T. Meadors
Epistemology is the study of the sources, nature, and validity of knowledge. (p. 20)
Philosophers recognize four ways that we know what we know. These include sense perception, reason, authority, and intuition. (p. 20)
Children need fences and space to develop. God the Father set the original model by providing Adam with both. Children’s following the will of their parents involves two levels. They must (1) exercise raw obedience to the non-negotiable standards and (2) learn how to anticipate the parents’ desires by reasoning through what they already know and applying that to the decision they are about to make. (p. 26)
We are not sufficient in ourselves to know God’s mind without help. (p. 36)
Paul always moves from right belief to right behavior, recognizing that behavior is the product of our thought patterns. (p. 46)
The mind is not renewed in a vacuum. The renewal process depends on the presence of revealed truths, which the mind processes in order to change. (p 47)
…pursue a process of discernment. (p 47)
When we are confronted with data, it is first filtered through the mind, where we evaluate it in light of the worldview and values that control our thinking processes. (p. 48)
Human beings assign meaning to data on the basis of the way they think about life. We call this a worldview and values set. (p. 49)
The second component of the transformed mind is the will. It is possible to know what is right or appropriate yet lack the determination to do it. (p. 50)
Knowing and doing God’s will is a process of learning to evaluate life from the perspective of divine values. It is not a search for a proof text for each decision or some extrabiblical subjective confirmation to point us in the right direction. Knowing and doing God’s will requires that we develop the capacity to evaluate life’s decisions from a biblical worldview and values system. (p. 51)
A worldview is the mental framework, or conceptual system, that gives meaning to all the components of our world and us. A worldview is the lens through which we see our world. Many different lenses have been proposed. Once you determine which lens to use, the whole world will appear as that lens color makes it. …. …set of presuppositions that give meaning to the data they evaluate. These presuppositions constitute a mental framework that becomes a set of beliefs about themselves and their world. (p 51-2)
Through the lenses of our worldview we make judgments about who we are, how we know what we know, and what values drive our lives. These three items are ontology (being), epistemology (knowing), and axiology (doing)/values). (p. 52)
So axiology is the philosophical study of what we view as worthy or valuable. As you might imagine, axiology is a vast subject covering everything that deals with aesthetics (what is beauty) and ethics (moral values). (p. 54)
…the ultimate belief of a Christian is that God exists, he has communicated to us, and the Bible is the accurate record of that communication. This is at the core of our worldview. (p. 54)
If you revert to a prayer such as, “God show me what to do with this situation,” and do not do your homework in the Bible, you have abrogated your responsibility to the revealed will of God.(p. 55)
The first level of development for the transformed mind relates to biblical commands. (p 57)
A second level of values development relates to what I call “community values.” (p. 57)
A third level of values is constituted by each individual’s personal preferences. (p. 58)
Remember, we have an inspired Bible but no inspired commentaries! (p. 60)
We need to come to grips with when the Bible is telling us what to do and when it is merely telling a story about what someone else did. (p. 76)
Jesus in the Gospels states that conformity to God’s revealed will, namely his moral teachings, is an evidence of true salvation. False professors who speak the name of the Lord but do not show the evidence of salvation in their lives with not fool God and will not enter heaven. (p. 97)
A surface reading of “will of God” passages where verbs like know, be filled with, or understand are used have caused some to think that these terms are synonyms for find. Such an understanding, however, is not true to the biblical contexts. These exhortations are not invitations to obtain new revelation but are appeals to engage the information already available. (p. 98)
To be filled with the Spirit is best understood as being characterized by the kind of life that the Spirit promotes, a life lived according to the behavioral patterns promoted in the moral teaching of the Bible. (p. 100)
Discernment, therefore, is about the application of truth. (p. 102)
The New Testament does not present a model of searching for God’s will in order to make decisions. Rather, the pattern is to respond to biblical teaching and us that teaching to order our lives. (p. 103)
The Christian community develops biblical teaching at three levels: direct, implied, and creative constructs. (p. 109)
Calvinism, Arminianism, covenantalism, dispensationalism, millennialism, views of counseling, and such are creative theological constructs that various believing communities argue best represent the whole teaching of Scripture. (p. 109)
Using the Bible as a guide for discernment requires that we gain skill in understanding what the Bible prescribes and what it describes. That is, we need to understand if a command, promise, or example is currently in force a command, promise, or example is currently in force (prescription) or whether the text is simply a record of how God dealt with someone in the past (description). (p. 110)
Terms such as show, teach, guide, direct, seek, and instruct do not imply an immediate revelatory process of guidance. Rather, they are terms of exhortation within contexts that offer wisdom for life by moral and godly value development based on what God has already revealed. (p. 120)
A search for knowledge about the future in order to make a decision in the present is absent in apostolic instruction. (p. 125)
Most Christians read a book about knowing God’s will because they long to please God and live a safe and happy life at the same time. The stereotype of God’s will in much of American Christian culture promises that both of these longings can be met if we find the center of God’s will. (p. 128)
The typical presentation of god’s will in many circles brings with it two assumptions: (1) that God requires us to find his plan for our lives in order to make life decisions and (2) that God will perform some kind of revealing act in order to communicate his will for our individual lives. These assumptions lead us down the wrong road. (p. 130)
In making a decision, each category must pass the test of our worldview and values set, which is the filter that makes judgments about everything you contemplate. (p. 135)
Is it not amazing that in spite of circumstances and the advice of others, Job never abandoned his worldview about God and his circumstances. (p. 135)
A Christian worldview is one that is informed by biblical knowledge. It will address our beliefs about who we are (ontology), how we know what we know (epistemology), and what we value as acceptable behavior (axiology). A Christian worldview will account for these categories within the framework of the biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. (p. 138)
I need to probe myself to uncover the sinful strategies I use to control my world. I need to know what drives me as a person. My blind sides, or the areas about which I have not gained self-awareness, will color my decisions. (p. 142)
This is easy to achieve in the military where superiors can speak honestly about those over whom they have control. However, it is not so easy to achieve in a family or a church where everyone wears their feelings on their sleeves and never forgets he negative evaluative words of others. (p. 143)
Because we assume that God is in control of our world, we should therefore assume that where we find ourselves circumstantially is God’s will. (p. 144)
One of the most neglected aspects of discernment in American culture is how to tap the wisdom of the community. (p. 146)
Conscience is a critical inner awareness, a witness in reference to the norms and values that we recognize and apply. The conscience does not create norms and values but merely responds to our existing “software.” (p. 155)
Conscience is not an independent entity that gives us values but a function of our self-awareness to remind us of the values we recognize. (p. 156)
When data comes to us to be evaluated, we run it through the grid of our worldview and values set. Our conscience relates the data to our values and alerts us when the data violates the values we recognize and apply. (p. 156)
Conscience is, therefore, not an independent agent communicating information to us but a God-given self-reflective tool to keep us faithful to what we believe. (p. 156)
The New Testament references to conscience present a second characteristic – conscience is a witness to the worldview and values system we recognize and apply. (p. 158)
Another major use of conscience is observed when it is modified by adjective like good, clear, and pure (I Tim 1:5; 1:19; I Peter 3: 16, 21: 2 Tim 1: 3); weak (I Cor. 8:7, 10, 12); and evil and guilty (Heb. 10: 22). (p. 159)
At the same time, I think Paul would say that we tolerate inadequate knowledge until the weak have had a reasonable time to educate themselves and address their worldviews. If they refuse to do so, they move from the category of weakness to belligerence. (p. 160)
The conscience monitors all levels of values equally. We will feel convicted in the same way, more or less, whether we violate a clear command not to lie, publicly violate a community standard, or violate our own personal standards. This is a job of the conscience. It does not discriminate the level of values; it merely monitors and holds us accountable to the ones we recognize and apply. (p. 163)
If our values are wrong, conscience can do nothing but go along with them. (p. 164)
Peace is a product of doing right, not a reason for action. (p. 166)
We are not to seek a sense of peace in order to act; we are to determine if an action is right and appropriate so that we can have a sense of peace. Peace does not justify actions; values do. (p. 166)
I have heard Christians equate illumination to revelation, that is, an extrabiblical process of direct communication from God to us. This is a flawed understanding. The work of the Spirit in the believer in relation to the Word is a work of conviction, not the communication of new content. (p. 172)
The Spirit’s role in guidance is to do an internal work that correlates with God’s Word rather than going beyond that Word with extrabiblical communications. (p. 175)
Romans 8:14, Galatians 5:18: Led in both passages is used as a metaphor of sanctification and does not represent extrabiblical Spirit guidance. (p. 175)
The Spirit is the divine agent of moral development. (p. 178)
The nonmiraculous spiritual gifts cited by Paul are not special endowments that we never had before conversion. Rather, they are the development of our innate talents within the context of the believing community and its activities. (p. 180)
Gifts are spiritual gifts because we now fulfill our natural giftedness under the umbrella of the church rather than the world. (p. 181)
The key issue is that we have to test all our feelings of conviction by an objective analysis of the Bible’s teaching and our own application of its values. (p. 184)
Accepting God’s sovereign will in the outcome of our prayers is our greatest expression of faith. (p. 189)
Prayer does not form God’s will but is an obedient response to God’s expectations for us. (p. 191)
Prayer is not a bashful exercise. Yet I believe we all sense that it is not a bossing exercise either. Prayer requires that we balance the boldness God expects of us with a worldview that respects God’s space and prerogatives. (p. 191)
But prayer does not manipulate God’s ultimate purposes. Rather God has designed his plan so that our prayers participate in the fulfillment of his eternally wise purposes. (p. 192)
This prayer for wisdom in the midst of a disaster is actually a prayer for God to help us process from our worldview why bad things happen to God’s people. (p. 193)
Therefore, when we ask the question “What is God’s will ___________?” we are required to ask, “What does the Bible teach about ____________? in order to begin to frame an answer for the question of God’s will in that situation. (p. 201)
After a few years of marriage, the incompatibilities will begin to surface! When they do, we are not free to seek another marriage if this one develops in unexpected ways. Rather, we are responsible to cultivate the garden in which we find ourselves. (p. 206)
As the saying goes, “Good judgment comes from experience and a lot of experience comes from poor judgment.” If we are able honestly to evaluate our journey, we will discover that our poor judgment often taught us the most. (p. 212)
A speaker I once heard made a wise statement about choosing a church. “Don’t look for a church with no problems, look for one that has problems with which you can deal!” Make a decision and work with it. (p. 213)