The Christian Worldview with Dr. Jeff Myers
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Dr. Jeff Myers: Consider the remote control / nurse call button on a typical hospital bed. Unfortunately, I had an intimate relationship with a hospital bed remote when my wife, a highly ranked cyclist, was struck by an automobile while out riding. I’ll never forget the call that I received from the Trauma Center telling me that they had her and they thought that she’d be fine, but she had suffered a head injury, so our conversations might feel quite awkward at first.
When I arrived, my wife said, “I’m so glad you’re here. What happened?”
I replied, “Honey, you were in a cycling crash.”
“Well, where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital.”
“Did I do anything wrong?”
“No. It was the motorist’s fault.”
“Ok… I’m so glad you’re here… what happened?”
And the circular conversation began. We had this same conversation literally 200 times. My wife could not remember which questions to ask, nor mentally hold the responses, as the accident had temporarily robbed her of her short term memory.
As she was beginning her recovery at the hospital, I was hit with a dilemma – to I stay with my brain-injured wife and leave our also-traumatized children with someone else to care for them at home, or go home and take care of my kids and leave my brain-injured wife alone at the hospital? One thing that helped me to decide was whether or not my wife could remember how to get help, if she were to need it. I taught her where the remote control was and how to use it.
30 seconds later she had completely forgotten about it.
So, I made a hand-written table tent for her that said, “For help, push red button.” and placed it on her tray table alongside her bed. Then I asked yet again, “Do you know what to do if you need help?”
“Yes. I push the red button”, she replied.
And I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Until she followed with, “So, where’s the red button?”
So I wrote on the table tent, “…on remote.” Then, I built a second table tent and wrote, “You were in a cycling accident. You are at the hospital. It was not your fault. Jeff loves you and will see you in the morning.”
Now, after her memory came back, we’ve been able to laugh about those moments, but at the time, it was incredibly frightening. The part of her brain that was necessary for her to remember even the most basic of things was the very part that was injured.
Unfortunately, what happened to my wife serves as an all-too-accurate analogy for how many Christians understand their Christian faith. They just don’t grasp the things that they don’t understand because their brain has essentially been damaged by the culture in which they live. What’s worse, they don’t even realize that the damage has been done. They have no memory of what is really true. And, they don’t remember that they don’t remember what is actually true.
So, I have found a particular children’s story that puts the Christian worldview in simple and succinct terms. It’s one of my favorites from the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones. For those of you with children, I highly recommend reading this book’s stories to your kids. And for those without children, I highly recommend reading the stories for yourself. This one particular story does a great job at summarizing what is important. And too many Christians fail to understand the source and foundation of their faith.
“God wrote, ‘I love you’ – He wrote it in the sky, and on the earth, and under the sea. He wrote His message everywhere! Because God created everything in His world to reflect Him like a mirror – to show us what He is like, to help us know Him, to make our hearts sing. And God put it into words too. He wrote it in a book called the Bible.
Now, some people think the Bible is a book of rules, telling you what you should and shouldn’t do. The Bible certainly does have some rules in it. They show you how life works best. But the Bible isn’t mainly about you and what you should be doing. It’s about God and what He has done.
Other people think the Bible is a book of heroes, showing you people you should copy. The Bible does have some heroes in it, but (as you’ll soon find out) most of the people in the Bible aren’t heroes at all. They make some big mistakes (sometimes on purpose). They get afraid and run away. At times they are downright mean.
No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back His lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves His palace, His throne – everything – to rescue the one He loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!
You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true.
There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves His children and comes to rescue them.
It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers His name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle – the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together, and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture.” (Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones)
I can’t think of a better way to describe the story of the Bible. It’s not a book about us and how we should live our lives so that we can be better people, as much as it is a story about who God is and what He has done – from which we can draw lessons about how we should live our lives. But, the Bible is not just a love letter. Nor is it a book like Aesop’s Fables, but with a religious twist.
The Bible is so much more than that
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(This podcast is by Summit Ministries. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central.)