The Bible's Understanding of the World

David Wells writes these helpful words about what the Bible means when when its writers use the word "world" in Above All Earthly Pow'rs:

"we need to be redeemed...from "following the course of this world"--our embeddedness in culture at the point of its fallen horizons, false belief structures, and misdirected devotions--all of which are kept in place by the powers of darkness (Eph 2:1-3). This is what gives to all culture its curiously ambiguous quality for it is an extension both of human life made in the image of God and of human life now fallen. In the Christian scheme, then, we have to be redeemed from sin and uprooted from what is dark in culture, from what in the Bible is called "this world," for Satan's captivity is exercised through the instrumentality of sin and that of "the world." It therefore becomes a matter of no small moment to be able to discern what in our culture is good, what is simply innocent, and what is neither" (23-4).

I italicized that last sentence because that is the goal of these posts on A.A.E.P. I want to be able to do this for the glory of God, the sanctification of His church, and it's witness to the world.