As we settle into a hotel room, one of the first things we do is check the view. Especially if we’re on vacation, we hope to have a room that provides us with something nice to look at. Even if it’s just a grove of trees behind the hotel, that’s better than looking out at a parking lot, stoplights, and clogged traffic. But it is better still to have a view from a scenic hilltop or from a high-rise hotel looking out at sparkling city lights!

When we ask for a room with a view, we automatically mean a good view; but every room with a window provides us some sort of view. The question is whether we are afforded a good view, a view that gives us peace and pleasure. The same thing is true of our worldview. Everyone has a worldview. Mankind was created in the image of God with cognition, intelligence, and self-awareness. As we look out at the world each day, we are viewing it in a certain way. We are making judgments about what we observe, from accepting someone’s basic definitions, to creating convictions about what is good and bad and right and wrong, to developing personal goals and broader hopes for what will happen next in the world.

What is your worldview? You can’t say, “I don’t have one. I’m not into that philosophical, theoretical stuff. I just live my life.” You have a worldview, just as every room with a window has a view. The question is whether your worldview is a good view, the true one that gives you real peace and godly pleasure, or a poor view that leaves you in blissful deception or daunted despair.

A Biblical Worldview

Each Christian’s worldview must come from the Word of God. The Bible must not be used only as a supplement to our understanding and wisdom, as if it gives us only occasional inspiration and minor adjustments to our thinking. Instead, God’s Word must be approached and taken as God’s comprehensive explanation of everything, His definition and instruction regarding who He is, who we are, what is right and wrong, and thus how we are to live in this world in relationship to Him as our Creator and Savior.

Granted, the Bible is a big book, but it is the means by which God chooses to speak to us and instruct us. Therefore, personal Bible study is essential to the Christian life. Spending time reading, meditating, praying, and applying God’s Word must not be seen as an optional form of spirituality, but a practice just as necessary to our faith as eating and drinking is to our physical life. Given that the Bible is a big book, might there not be something to help us? Yes, and this is where our Reformed confessions are a great blessing to us.

A Confessional Worldview

In the RPCNA, the Westminster Confession of Faith, along with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, serve as our confessional standards. Essentially, they are summaries of the central teachings of God’s Word. Therefore, as God’s Word gives shape and definition to our worldview, and as the Westminster Standards summarize that Word, we can rightly say that the standards are our worldview. Just by reading through the titles of the 33 chapters of the Westminster Confession of Faith, we gain a sense of its extensive nature, offering us a summary of what God’s Word teaches across a comprehensive range of subjects. The standards of the church are not just for the pastor and the elders. They must not be relegated to the theologically minded. Just as we all have a worldview, so we must all be theologians to the extent that we seek to learn and apply the central teachings of God’s Word, and the standards are an invaluable tool for our success in this endeavor.

What then is the relationship between the Confession of Faith and the catechisms within the Westminster Standards? The catechisms do not so much go beyond the Confession, but instead they reformat the material into questions and answers for teaching purposes. Whether we are seeking to be taught or to teach others, the catechisms, joined to the Confession, give us an opportunity to gain the teaching of God’s Word in summary form.

Of course, having the standards is one thing, and using them is another. Many churches have confessions; some even claim to be confessional and yet drift with the culture into error because they do not use and enforce their standards.

The Centrality of the Word

If you are currently reading nothing in the practice of your Christian faith, start with God’s Word! Remember that Jesus calls us to be disciples and that a disciple is a student. So, like Mary in Luke 10:39, sit at the feet of Jesus by regularly spending much time in your Bible and not missing an opportunity to sit under your pastor’s ministry of the Word. Remember also that for students of God’s Word, graduation day comes only in the day of our death or upon the return of Christ.

When legendary cellist Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice at age 90, he answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.” Can we be any less devoted to our progress as disciples of Christ? Whatever your age or stage in life, read, study, learn, and apply the Word of God. And as you study the Word, make good use of the standards by learning to view the entire world through the eyes of God.

Going back to that hotel room in which we started, imagine yourself looking out at the sparkling lights of a grand city spread out below you. It’s impressive, breathtaking, and the only thing better would be to have someone beside you to explain what you’re seeing, someone who knows the city and can help you see it with better understanding. That’s what God’s Word does for us. God’s Word tells us what we’re seeing as we look out at this world. Whether we’re looking at the beauty of the natural creation or at the things that humankind has done and is doing, we need Christ to stand beside us and to instruct us by His Word.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to use God’s Word as a supplemental set of instructions. God’s Word cannot and must not be taken as optional or as a stopgap source when we get stuck trying to make sense of our lives in this world. Let us begin and end with the Word. Let us submit to a good and gracious God as He tells us who He is, who we are, what’s right and wrong, and what our purpose is in this grand world. And use your standards to help you know and understand God’s Word, as your Bible gives you God’s view of the entire world—indeed, of reality itself.