But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. – Psalm 131:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 6, 2013): Psalm 131 & 132

There is an ongoing battle between culture and the church. It is a battle that I admit that I am not sure that I understand. The argument goes something like this. The world is split into two dominant worldviews. (Admittedly in the 21^st century the argument has failed already. There are many more than two worldviews, but the argument groups all of the possible worldviews into basically two groups.) The main worldview is the one we would call a Secular Worldview. It is the way that the world is seen outside of God. And set up against this worldview is the Christian or Religious Worldview. And the argument seems to be that only one of these world views can be correct. So in order to be Christian, a person must reject the majority worldview.

But the argument goes beyond just spiritual belief. The worldviews seem to drastically differ in so many of the basic understandings of life. And one of the most drastic areas of conflicts is in the area of science. It is not just a conflict in the so-called Evolution and Creation debate, but it extends even to what it is that can be known. I was recently in a public conversation where I mentioned the certainty of our knowledge of the Theory of Gravity – in fact, so much of what we know is based on the idea of attraction between two bodies, and a very educated gentleman commented that gravity is unproven: that all that can be said is that there is a law of repeated events at work – and it is this law that gives me the assurance that when I drop something it will fall to the ground. I was astonished,  - and I could not believe that we had taken the worldview battle that far.

In his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, Jesus makes it clear that we are born into the natural world. It is our first place of life. And there is a time when that is all that we know. The Psalmist would seem to agree. For the first portion of our life we are dependent on this world. But there is no conflict. The Secular World View is simply our earliest understanding of life. But it would seem that it also creates a dependency. We need our second understanding to go along with the first. We are naturally born of flesh (and I am not using this term to indicate sin which I admit it can also mean), but we also need to be born of the spirit, which means being weaned from a dependence on the flesh.

To carry the Psalmists imagery a step further, just because a child is weaned from its mother does not mean that mom is no longer needed. It simply indicated that there has been a change in the relationship. And when we are weaned from our Secular World View, our relationship with the world also changes. It is not a reversal of everything that we had known, but we can be calm because we have put the things of this world in its proper place. And only then is true contentment in the world really possible.         

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 133 & 134