Christian Philosophy: Everyone Has a Philosophy. It's The Lens Through Which They View The World and Make Decisions.
Authors: Andrew Wommack
Scripture quotations are taken from the
King James Version
of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked Amplified are taken from
The Amplified Bible. Old Testament
copyright © 1965, 1987 by Zondervan Corporation, Grand Rapids, Michigan. New
Testament
Copyright © 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, California. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the
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Christian Philosophy
ISBN: 978-1-60683-558-6
Copyright © 2012 by Andrew Wommack
Published by:
Harrison House Publishers, LLC
Tulsa, OK 74145
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved under International Copywrite Law. Contents and/or cover may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written consent of the Publisher.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What is Christian Philosophy?
Chapter 2: Why Should I Care About Philosophy?
Chapter 4: How Do We Know the Bible is Inspired?
Chapter 5: How Do I Follow God?
Chapter 6: Can I Really Know God?
Chapter 7: Is God Angry With Me?
Chapter 8: What About Suffering?
Chapter 9: Social Issues: Christians Must Speak Up
Chapter 10: Creation vs. Evolution
Chapter 11: A Godly Prespective on Homosexuality
Chapter 12: Facts and Statistics Regarding Homosexuality
Chapter 14: In the World, but Not of It
Part I
What Is Christian Philosophy?
E
veryone has a philosophy—whether you realize it or not. A philosophy is simply the basic set of ideas, beliefs, and values that you live by. It’s your outlook, or the filter through which you view life. Every piece of information that comes to you and every situation you face is filtered through your philosophy. In a sense, your philosophy predetermines your response to the things happening around you and the results you see in life. Yet many people are unaware of their philosophy. They have never combined their separate beliefs into a single value system through which they view the world and interpret life.
Pessimism and optimism are two simple examples of opposite philosophies. Pessimists look toward the future and expect the worst, while optimists hope for the best. You could sit a pessimist and an optimist side by side, expose them to identical circumstances, and the optimist would find some positive way to spin what has happened, while the pessimist would focus on the negative. The optimist would look for some opportunity to take advantage of the situation, while the pessimist would focus on the negative and be more likely to get depressed and discouraged.
Philosophy is the reason identical situations can produce completely different responses in different people. Your philosophy filters every experience you have and every piece of information that comes your way. The apostle Paul emphasized this truth to the Colossians when he warned them to be on the lookout for anyone who would “spoil” them through philosophy. A wrong philosophy causes wrong responses to circumstances, and it can cause you to draw wrong conclusions about events and information in life. Christians need a philosophy that is modeled after Christ, and not after the traditions of men, vain deceit, or the principles of this world.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Colossians 2:8
The believers in Colossae learned about Christ from Epaphras, not from Paul. We know Paul hadn’t preached to the Colossians in person before he wrote to them because he stated that he hadn’t yet seen the Colossians face-to-face (Colossians 2:1). The Colossians were once removed from Paul’s teaching, so he wanted to make sure they fully understood the doctrine of Christ. He didn’t want them lacking in any area or at risk for being led away by false teaching (Colossians 2:4).
Then Paul writes, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Colossians 2:6). This verse has had a major impact on my life. The way we receive salvation is by putting faith in Jesus; Paul says this is the same way we receive everything else we need as Christians (healing, deliverance, provision, etc). It’s amazing how people begin their Christian walk by putting faith in what Jesus did for them, but then start thinking they are going to be perfected by their own holiness and good works. You can’t get saved by the grace of God and then try to earn all of salvation’s benefits through your own effort—it won’t work.
Though Paul was writing to Christians, he had never ministered to the Colossians directly and he wanted to make sure they had everything they needed to live the abundant lives God intended for them. This has direct application for us today because many people, if not most, who have been born again have not heard the true Gospel. They haven’t heard all of the things they need to know in order to prosper and really walk in victory. I don’t think there can really be any debate about that when you compare the way people in the Bible experienced victory versus the experience of the average Christian today. The Christian message being proclaimed today is not producing the same degree of victory in the lives of those who hear it as it did during New Testament times. In part, I believe this is because churches aren’t teaching the same Gospel that was taught in the first century.
As a whole, the church has discontinued teaching and making disciples, and is now simply producing converts. Most efforts are aimed at just trying to get people born again so they can go to heaven when they die, but not a lot of energy is aimed at helping converts become true followers of Christ. Yet Jesus commanded us to make disciples, not converts. He said,
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.
Matthew 28:19-20
The Lord told us to teach people to observe “all things,” yet the modern church has basically reduced Christianity to confessing Jesus as Lord in order to avoid going to hell, which is only a portion of the Gospel. This is exactly what Paul was warning the Colossians against. He warned them to beware in case they didn’t get the full truth, because it would make them susceptible to all of the ways Satan tries to steal the benefits of the Word of God. Paul’s advice is just as applicable to us today as it was 2,000 years ago.
The English word
“beware”
in that verse is defined by
The Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Electronic Dictionary as
“To be on guard (against); be wary (of).” It comes from the two Middle English words “be” and “war” which, when put together, signify “to be at war.” This word reminds me of standing guard duty when I was in the Army. Some people didn’t take guard duty seriously and they would sleep through their whole shift, but I couldn’t do that. We were in a war, and sleeping through guard duty put everyone’s life at risk. In a spiritual sense, many Christians are not heeding Paul’s warning to “beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.” They don’t know we are in a spiritual battle and Satan is attacking our values every day. He is trying to get us away from the godly way of looking at things that is established in the Word of God.
We are being pressured every hour of every day, and I believe the attack on Christian values is greater now than it has been at any other time in history. Prior to the information age, Christians were able to isolate themselves, in a sense. They didn’t have to expose themselves to the things that were going on in the world. But now, we live in the information age. Television, radio, print news, cell phones, and the Internet are continuously parading the problems and philosophies of the world in front of us. We are being bombarded with the negative philosophy and thoughts of this world more than any generation of Christians that has ever lived, so it is especially important for us to be on our guard.
During the war in Vietnam, I was stationed on a small fire support base that was 41 miles from the nearest U.S. military installation. A fire support base is an isolated base that provides artillery support to soldiers patrolling beyond the range of their base camps. Somebody said that war consists of long periods of boredom sprinkled with a few moments of sheer terror—and that pretty much sums up the experience I had. Nothing would happen for a long time, and then suddenly we would come under attack.
I spent my 21
st
birthday in Vietnam, and it was one of the days we came under attack. We took multiple direct hits on the bunker I was in and I could see the muzzle fire from our enemies’ weapons. On nights like that, I can guarantee you nobody was sleeping on guard duty. They took things seriously because they knew that the enemy was out there trying to kill us.
Christians need to get the same sense of vigilance; we need to recognize that we are under attack. Satan is coming against us and we need to “beware lest any man spoil” us. Spoil means to carry off the plunder of war, or to carry a person off as a captive and slave.
1
In a battle, the victor strips the one he has vanquished of everything valuable, so Paul is using military terms to say, “Beware lest Satan take from you some of the things that God has given you!” God has already given us everything that pertains to life and godliness through knowing and having intimate relationship with Jesus Christ (2 Peter 1:3-4), but we won’t experience those benefits if we allow the world to seduce us into viewing life from an ungodly, unbiblical perspective.
God says that you’ve already been healed. He has already blessed you. You already have wisdom in abundance. You already have faith. You already have forgiveness. Yet many people aren’t experiencing the blessings of God because they believe the lies society is being bombarded with, and it is robbing them of victory. They aren’t experiencing joy, peace, and prosperity. Christians are missing out on what Jesus has purchased for them because they haven’t recognized that we are in a battle. Satan has come into many people’s lives and led them away captive, exactly as Paul warned he would “through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”
The devil doesn’t overpower Christians—because he can’t. With Adam and Eve, he didn’t use the strongest animal in the Garden to force Adam and Eve to submit to him and eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t use a lion to overcome them and force them to obey. No, what he did was come against them with words, with thoughts, and he corrupted their way of thinking. That’s how original sin entered into this earth. That is exactly the point Paul was making to the Colossians. He was telling them to look out lest somebody rob them of what Jesus has provided, by seducing them with words and thoughts that would corrupt their way of thinking. Not just individual thoughts, but enough to change your entire outlook on life, your worldview.