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From the archives: 5 tools for applying faith, work, & economics to your life

From the archives: 5 tools for applying faith, work, & economics to your life

Last updated on: March 8, 2015 at 9:22 pm by Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics

From the archives: 5 tools for applying faith, work, & economics to your life 2015-02-26T11:35:10-05:00 Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Hugh Whelchel

Thinking Biblically

In a world of differing voices competing for our allegiance, God tells us that we must learn to “think biblically” so we can distinguish good from evil and act accordingly. We must learn to think differently – to think biblically – because what we think shapes who we are.

John MacArthur writes in his book Think Biblically,

A truly Christian worldview begins with the conviction that God himself has spoken in Scripture. As Christians, we are committed to the Bible as the inerrant and authoritative Word of God. Scripture is the standard by which we must test all other truth-claims.

But thinking biblically requires much more than memorizing a lot of Scripture. It requires learning to think critically and practically about what the Bible has to say. It requires understanding the Bible in its original intent, its contexts, and its modern day relevance. It requires being able to combine all of these things in order to make sense of the daily decisions we must make to live out our lives.

Five Tools for Applying Faith, Work, and Economics to Your Life

One question I am often asked when I speak to groups about both my book and what we do at IFWE is,

How do I apply the principles that you are teaching to what I do every day?

In order to answer that question, I want to offer five cognitive tools based on scriptural teaching that can help us simplify and organize all of the countless input we get from the world around us.

These tools should shape and support Christian thinking and decision-making, as well as enable us to build a holistic biblical worldview. By using these tools, we can take biblical principles and apply them to the various contexts we encounter in our daily lives.

These five tools are:

1. Personal Vision – Understanding who God has created you to be and what he has called you to do.

2. Gifts and Talents – Understanding your comparative advantage.

3. Wisdom and Knowledge – Understanding that Christians trust the Bible as our only authoritative source for faith and practice.

4. Stewardship – Understanding that we are accountable to God for what we do with everything that he has given us.

5. Biblical Self-Interest – Understanding that obedience to God’s call on our lives is in our own best interest.

These five cognitive tools are similar to what some have described as mental models. Susan Carey’s journal article, “Cognitive Science and Science Education” (1986) defines a mental model as,

…a person’s thought process for how something works (i.e. a person’s understanding of the surrounding world. Mental models are based on incomplete facts, past experiences, and even intuitive perceptions. They help shape actions and behavior, influence what people pay attention to in complicated situations, and define how people approach and solve problems.

The problem many of us experience is that the models we use to understand the world around us and make decisions are often based on our experiences and on surrounding culture, not on biblical principles.

The Call to God’s Grand Story

These five tools help us form a matrix, or framework, through which we can fulfill our calling in a way that glorifies God, serves the common good, and furthers his kingdom.

As Michael W. Goheen writes,

The question is not whether the whole of our lives will by shaped by some grand story. The only question is which grand story will shape our lives. For the one who has heard Jesus’ call to follow him, the call comes with a summons to enter the story of which he was the climatic moment – the story narrated in the Bible. It is an invitation to find our place in that story.

Read more about how these five tools can help us think biblically about this grand story, and how faith, work, and economics fit together within it, at the rest of TIFWE’s series on Five Tools for Thinking Biblically About Faith, Work, & Economics:

Part 2: Why Is Personal Vision Important?
Part 3: Discovering Your Personal Vision
Part 4: Writing Your Personal Vision
Part 5: Why I Am Not A Plumber
Part 6: Gifts, Talents, and Virtue
Part 7: Putting Virtue into Practice, Part 1
Part 8: Putting Virtue Into Practice, Part 2
Part 9: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know: Knowledge, Understanding, and Wisdom
Part 10: General & Special Revelation: the Knowledge of God
Part 11: Why Humility Matters for Faith, Work, & Economics
Part 12: How Do We Create Long-Term Value for the Kingdom of God?

From the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics

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