Your worldview is like a pair of glasses. They sit right in front of your spiritual eyes, affecting your perception of everything you see. 

If your worldview is sound, you will see the world around you clearly. But if your worldview contains lies, it will affect everything else you think you know. Pink-tinted glasses make the whole world look pink.

Here’s one thing to remember about worldviews. Because we all have them, and they’re annoyingly inseparable from our lives, facts never fight alone. 

You and everyone around you always filter facts through your worldview glasses. If you and your friend encounter the same fact, but you are wearing different worldview glasses, you can’t expect your friend to suddenly be won over to your side.

 For example, you can both agree that humans receive all necessary genetic information at conception. Through your glasses, that means that abortion kills an innocent human being. 

Through his glasses, it means that fetuses are “humans,” but not “persons.” You see, in order to truly win someone over, you need to not only present facts. 

You need to address the worldview behind them.

I think we can see this basic principle displayed in Scripture several times.

In Matthew 12, Jesus healed a demon-possessed man who was both blind and mute. All the people were amazed at what had happened, and wondered if Jesus could be the Son of David. But not so with the Pharisees. Their response? 

“It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons” (Matthew 12:24). 

The Pharisees saw the same event that everyone else did. But they interpreted it completely differently.

On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and allowed them to speak the wonders of God in foreign languages. Many people were flabbergasted. But not everyone—some people mocked them and said, 

“They have had too much wine” (Acts 2:13). 

They witnessed the same event. But again, they interpreted it completely differently.

Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus ends in a peculiar way. The rich man, in hell, wants Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers so they will not also end up where he is. He is sure that “if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.” 

But Abraham disagrees: 

“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:30–31). 

So it is possible to literally witness a resurrected man and not be convinced of God’s truth. That’s exactly what happened with Jesus; even some of those who saw Him after the resurrection doubted (Matthew 28:17).

What are we to make of this? 

Apparently, to convince someone of the truth, it’s not just enough to present the correct set of facts. Facts always have to be interpreted. There were people who witnessed Jesus’ miracles, Pentecost, and even Christ’s resurrection and interpreted it all differently! 

They had a different worldview.

This is no less true today.

As we said above, you and your friend may both agree that the preborn baby is scientifically a human. For your friend, this means that apparently not all humans are persons. For you, this means that abortion is murder.

You and your friend may both agree that abortion harms women. For your friend, this means we need to make abortion safer and more accessible. For you, it means that abortion should be banned.

You and your friend may both agree that extramarital sex increases unplanned pregnancies. For your friend, this means we need to increase access to contraception. For you, it means that we should stop engaging in extramarital sex.

You and your friend agree that our world is full of broken people. For your friend, this means we need more education. For you, this means we need more repentance.

For each of these problems, you and your friend view the same fact through different glasses. Perhaps the only way to resolve disagreements like this is to switch the worldview spectacles.

Unfortunately, a worldview is not as easy to switch out as your eyewear. For some of the most important questions in life, correct interpretation is not possible by your own power. 

A proper worldview requires illumination by God Himself.

Peter had the correct answer about Jesus’ identity:

“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

But this answer was not Peter’s own doing:

“This was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16:16-17).

None of this means that you can’t or shouldn’t argue about various issues with those of different worldviews. 

But it does explain why we so often clash with others over things that seem so obvious to us. It also reminds us that what we love always affects what we believe to be true.

If you love the wrong things, you will believe the wrong things. 

So sometimes a conversation or cultural debate will never break ground before we change the subject and hash out the worldviews underlying everything else.