Updated 28 May 2020. Originally published 9 Aug 2016.

Why Worldview Questions?

These worldview questions came into being about four years ago. One of the things that occupied my time and attention that crazy summer was the fact that my oldest was starting high school (where did the time go?!) and we’ve needed to give renewed consideration to what we wanted her education to look like over the next several years.

One of the things that’s most important to us is her ability to formulate a biblical worldview — that is, her ability to think biblically about issues and ideas in her life and the world around her.  In mulling over this, I concluded that the best way to accomplish this would be to have her practice the process we hope for her to habitually use as her approach to new questions and ideas.

(As I’m updating this post four years later, I can attest to the effectiveness of this tool.  Ariel demonstrates a comfort with and confidence in weighing questions against a biblical backdrop — even questions I wouldn’t have thought of, myself.)

The Curriculum

I’m a bit of a minimalist when it comes to curriculum; I don’t believe in making things complicated when they don’t have to be.  So our “worldview curriculum” consisted of a series of tough questions (and, of course, my daughter’s Bible).  Each week she was presented with a new question, and was required to formulate a position on it and defend that position from Scripture.

These aren’t really writing assignments; I wasn’t particularly concerned with whether she could churn out a properly-formatted essay each week.

And it wasn’t a test of how well she agreed with her daddy and me; I was less concerned with the specific conclusions she arrived at than with her ability to study the Scripture and apply it to the questions at hand.  (Although I like to think that we have a fairly biblical worldview, so we figured if most of her positions didn’t turn out fairly close to ours, that would mean either she or we probably had some things to work on!)

A Few Notes

Not all of these questions are directly addressed by Scripture.  Some are largely questions of wisdom — but they can still be informed by biblical principles.  (So don’t anybody go jumping to any weird conclusions over my inclusion of those, assuming I think they’re spelled out in Scripture!)

I expected she might need some help, especially early on.  That’s okay.  The goal with these questions is to practice the habit of going to Scripture as the foundation of any question, not to have it all right or to be completely independent.  Even as adults, seeking godly counsel when we’re unsure about something is part of wisdom!

The original list I brainstormed/compiled (with help from friends in the Reformed Pub Facebook group — thanks, guys!) was a bit longer than this.  The list is evangelical and protestant but, to the best of my knowledge should not be inappropriate for any particular denomination.  The very nature of the questions calls for the ability to defend our theology, so if yours is different from mine, your responses to the questions will simply reflect that.

Want the PDF with 52 questions?  Enter your information below to download.