For the past eighteen years I’ve been developing and honing a graphic presentation of the biblical worldview to use as a teaching tool when I speak. It’s now in PowerPoint (which, to the disbelief of 18-year-olds, did not exist 18 years ago!). It has also been titled the “Two Ways Worldview.” That title indicates that the thrust of the presentation is to compare and contrast The Way of Truth and Life with The Way of Deception and Death.
This “two roads” metaphor, of course, is taken from the gospels’ characterization of the way that leads to life and the way that leads to destruction—or the broad and narrow ways. My studies on this have made it clear to me how God’s “two books” (special and general revelation / the Bible and the creation) are interrelated and are both significant to the way we live our lives.
The presentation box below gives you a limited version that provides the content in static slides. The full PowerPoint presentation is “animated” in that it progresses point by point through each slide instead of coming up with the page full of content as it does on this Slideshare version. If you are interested in having a copy of the full presentation and/or a Word document that gives its rationale, you can do this:
Make a comment on this post with just one of these words: If you want the presentation, simply say “yes.” If you also want the rationale document, say “both.” As administrator of the blog, I can pull your email address from your comment and then email it to you. I realize that’s a rather unorthodox use of the comment box; but shucks, it works! And if you want to comment on the presentation at the same time, that would be great. Please don’t hesitate to critique it—because it’s a work in progress. Thoughtful and biblically sound comments will no doubt make it better.
See you outdoors!
Dean
Click on the box below to activate it. At the bottom right-hand corner of the presentation box is an icon of a projector screen. If you click on that icon, the presentation will fill your computer screen—which makes it much easier to read. Just press the “Esc” key on your keyboard to get back to the standard view.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Dean, please send both.
The presentation is excellent. The only comment I would make is that at slide 17 where the behaviors are compared, it may not be clear that this really is a choice between the flesh and the Spirit for a Christian. If I were showing this to a Christian (s), I would somehow make a “fork in the road” choice that a Christian operating from the flesh can be “living on the way of deception and death” as well as the non-christian. I know there are theological differences here for some, but without something like this, someone might think he can live “the way of truth and life” on autopilot.
I want to study this more and certainly want a real “ppt” to work with. After that I will comment further. I would think RBC might want to copyright this for obvious reasons. Let me know how “free” this is, but I will assure you that I won’t plagiarize this good work.
December 4th, 2008 at 10:31 am
To rdrcomp:
You make a great point.
When I use this presentation in a lecture, I make this same observation when I get to slide 23: “The Critical Gap.” Here I point out that when Christians try to “be better” than non-Christians, but use the culture as the standard of reference instead of the unchanging standards of “the way of truth and life,” we actually end up declining with a declining culture.
The reality is that as a culture becomes less Christian, if followers of Christ are living by the standards of “the way of truth and life,” we are going to look more and more different from the world. [The Amish come to mind.]
But because we often determine to live at a level a few degrees “morally better” than the world, we end up living like the world did a decade or so earlier.
Those of us who have lived for several decades have the advantage of seeing this a bit more clearly. Take just one area: movies. The movies Christians will watch without flinching today would have been considered off limits a decade earlier. And if you were a teenager 50 years ago, like I was, the contrasts are really stark between what we felt acceptable thinking, talking, and behaving for a Christian then and the values of teenagers today.
What is most striking to me is the difference in how we use our money and resources. My parents’ generation spent far less of their income on material goods for themselves and donated far more to missions, ministries, and the church.
So you are right, we have to choose between “the way of truth and life” and “the way of deception and death” every day.
Dean
December 10th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Dean,
Please send both.
Your presentation is great. Why not include some scripture references to lend Biblical credibility to your statements? You might want to do these as “hot buttons” so that when a reader drags his mouse over the reference, the words of the verse are shown.
Jim