Interlocked
was specifically developed to address a growing need among believers. It’s the need to understand God’s Word holistically in a way that builds the life of the believer.
Today, people claim that there are as many worldviews out there as there are people.
Some believe they are the products of chance, the result of billions of years of evolution. They are simply random blobs floating about without any meaning. There is no right, no wrong, no purpose to life.
Others believe that there are gods who formed the universe out of themselves and that people are made of this same god “ingredient”—that is they, too, are part of the same universe as the gods. This means they can level up and become gods or level down to animals based on how they live. However, they aren’t quite sure who decides whether they are good enough to level up or bad enough that they will be levelled down. There are no absolutes and no certainty in life.
Still others trust the God of the Bible, Yahweh, and His account of who He is, who they are, and the purpose for which He created them. They believe Yahweh is full of truth and rely on Him as the ultimate authority on what is right and wrong. They derive their moral standard as well as meaning and purpose in life from Him.
The way we understand how the world works, i.e., our worldview, affects how we view our life, our problems and what is happening around us. Our worldview either gives us meaning or it destroys meaning.
The Challenge.
Churchgoers today are bombarded by the non-biblical worldview in mass media, schools, at the workplace and in content they view.
Here are examples of thoughts we encounter.
A celebrity tweets: “You have full control of your life. You can make yourself whole. You have what it takes inside you to be everything you want to be.”
Can we believe this?
A co-worker says: “We are all victims in this evil world. Evil will always be there. We just need to learn how to live with it.”
Is this true?
A close friend messages: “You have your truth and I have mine. There are many ways to get to the same place, heaven.”
Is she right?
Other churchgoers are ambushed and trapped by the accusations and challenges thrown against their worldview. For example:
A blog commentary says: “Institutions like marriage and family are just outdated and arbitrary ideas. They are random and made up, so people should be able to change them to suit their needs.”
How should we think?
A neighbour says: “How can you worship such an evil God? Haven’t you read in the Old Testament that your God ordered genocide and intolerance and rejected religious harmony?”
How do we reply?
Someone on Facebook types: “If your God is a God of love, how can he… (fill in the blank).”
How do we respond?
Are we able to respond with reasonable answers? How do we stand firm in the face of such challenges? Or do we often find that our understanding of our faith fails us and we too start to question our beliefs?
Can we as believers identify the biblical worldview and know when we are being exposed to non-biblical ones?
Too often, we find that as believers, our understanding of the Bible is piecemeal.
A Common Observation
Mike learnt in church that God is love.
Here is the one piece of truth he believes in.
However, Mike cannot really explain why he believes that God is love. He does not have concrete examples or evidence to help himself or anyone else understand the reason for his belief. The media and his friends start questioning and attacking his belief. They say things like:
“If your God is a loving God, why is there such pain, suffering and evil in the world?”
“If your God is love, why did he allow my mother to die of cancer?”
“If you say your God is in control of the universe, then he must be evil. Look at the devastation caused by the earthquake! So many lives lost and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.”
“How can you say your God is a God of love when Christians are full of hate for people who are not like them?”
Mike’s friends’ unbelief is coming up against his one piece of truth.
On and on, Mike is faced with a barrage of attacks. Very soon, he is overwhelmed. He cannot answer any of his friends and he has no answer to anything he sees or reads in the media.
In a very short time, Mike starts to believe his friends and the media.
The small piece of truth that he believed in is swallowed up by the wave of unbelief.
Not only is he unable to answer any of the attacks, he now stops believing that one piece of truth.
This is just the first step in Mike questioning the Bible and questioning God without finding any answers. Mike was trying to understand God from the world’s perspective. This was the wrong approach. Ultimately, Mike left the church.
For many, when they encounter such situations, they find that they lack clarity, understanding and answers from the Bible. As a result, their faith falters.
An Interlocked Network of Truth.
This Bible study aims to build an interlocked network of truth in the minds of believers and churchgoers.
Using Mike as an example again, we will see how he might have responded if he had this network of truth as his foundation.
Mike is learning about God and the Bible in his small group. They are covering the main narrative from Genesis to Revelation. With each and every major biblical event, they learn about God’s history and truth from God’s own perspective. However, they also study the world’s perspective of these events and discuss the biblical response to the non-biblical worldview. Mike starts to build up evidence and understanding on what the statement “God is love” is anchored upon.
God’s truths work together. As Mike studies the Bible further, he builds up his understanding of God’s interlocking network of biblical truth.
Now, when the media and his friends start attacking isolated Bible verses or truths, Mike has a biblical framework and an understanding as to why he believes that God is love.
Importantly, Mike can explain his own beliefs to himself.
He understands why he has good reason to continue to believe the one true God, the God of the Bible.
Mike uses the network of interlocking truths to untangle the non-biblical perspective being forced upon him by the world.
In this Bible study, when we learn Scripture, we do not want to have these pieces of truth as isolated events in our heads. We want to build a network of truth that would give us a solid appreciation of God and the world around us, so that we can guard ourselves against non-biblical thinking and unbelief.
The hope is that this will give us stability and assurance in our lives.
In addition, the network will give us the ability to clearly communicate and share the biblical worldview with those among our loved ones who would like to better understand our beliefs.
The Objective.
Interlocked takes the participant through the big narrative of the Bible. It is an overarching account of the world’s history from God’s perspective. The study has the following objectives:
1. To show who God is through an enlarged vision of Him as revealed in Scripture.
God is the hero of the Bible and Scripture is His personal revelation about Himself and a record of His interactions with mankind. We will study His Word with a focus on His character. Through this, we will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of who the God of the Bible is.
2. Allow the Bible to interpret the world.
The biblical worldview is in direct conflict with the non-biblical worldview of the culture we live in. We want to learn how to let the Word of God interpret the world around us, rather than let the world around us interpret the Word of God.
3. Show the Bible’s big picture, that is, its metanarrative.
Learn the Bible’s overarching historical account from Genesis to Revelation, with a focus on the biblical perspective of life and how we all fit into God’s plan.
Get a good overview of the structure of the Bible, its chronology and how the different books fit together to form one narrative.
See the strong links and deep interconnections between the Old and New Testaments.
Learn what God has revealed to us in history about who He is, who we are and His plans for the world and us.
4. Build a framework for explaining and defending the faith.
Build a comprehensive biblical worldview by interlocking many biblical truths together to form a framework that enables us to understand the world from God’s point of view. This framework will be the tool to help us analyse and deconstruct the pervasive non-biblical ideologies of our culture.
5. Understand the gospel from a broader perspective.
We will learn God’s progressive revelation regarding His plan to save and restore both mankind and nature physically and spiritually. We will explore how God directs world history towards His ultimate goal and conclusion.
How do the lessons work?
Each lesson is about 120 minutes long and is built with three tracks that are found in every lesson.
1. Bible narrative of key events from Genesis to Revelation
The lessons cover the major events in the Bible and tie them all together as a single narrative, showing God’s sovereignty and His plan for world history.
2. Truths revealed through the events
As we go through biblical history, we will study the truths from each of the major events. The truths will be interlocked together to build a comprehensive biblical framework to understand God’s character and the world from His perspective.
3. Contrast biblical and non-biblical worldviews
Each lesson takes the biblical worldview and deliberately contrasts it with the non-biblical worldview. Each lesson examines one or more hard questions that we face, particularly questions that often shipwreck a believer’s faith. The discussions train us on how to use the biblical framework of truth to respond so we are able to stay grounded in the faith and can give good responses to tough questions in a winsome and respectful way.
4. Discussion Questions
To help us process the content in the lessons, we will have discussion questions. These will help us grapple with and clarify our understanding of Scripture.
5. “Faith in Action” Reviews
Six lessons will be longer review sessions, where after completing a major Bible section, we will go back to discuss what God has revealed and how that builds upon our understanding of Him and of the world. Challenging questions will be discussed during these reviews to help participants process what has been taught and to help answer questions that the class may have. These “Faith in Action” exercises will also train us on how to use the interlocked biblical framework to analyse our faith, our lives and respond to questions and issues that the world challenges us with.
Desired Outcome.
The goal of this intensive and in-depth Bible study is to produce thriving disciples of Christ. The four desired outcomes are:
Fall in love with God as the hero of the whole Bible and the whole world.
The focus of the curriculum is on showing the omnipotence, sovereignty and glory of our loving God. This will be done by presenting history and truth from God’s point of view, and showing wherever we can, God’s ultimate motive and plan. Conversely, the men and women of the Bible will not be presented as heroes, but rather as true-to-life and fallible, saved by the grace and mercy of God.
Inspire, encourage and increase Bible reading through excitement for the Scriptures.
A decreasing number of churchgoers spend time reading their Bibles regularly. Many have the perception that the Bible is dull or that they already know the stories. This curriculum attempts to intentionally pique participants’ interest by teaching content in a way that would challenge them to see the Bible as God’s exciting and unfolding history. (One participant said, “You make me thirsty for the Bible.” This is the exact sentiment that we hope this curriculum will generate.)
Heighten sensitivity to the difference between the biblical and non-biblical worldviews and increase faith and confidence that the Bible does speak to the issues of today’s world.
By raising the participants’ awareness about the differences between the biblical and non-biblical worldviews, we hope that participants will not quickly accept what popular culture promotes. At the minimum, they will carefully question and examine the propositions made through the lens of the Bible. The study’s intent is to equip participants with enough biblical perspective that they have an idea of the Bible’s answer to any particular issue.
Build hope, joy and confidence that God is in control.
By showing the participants that world history is a continuous unfolding of God’s plan, they will not lose hope that the world is spinning out of control but is in the capable hands of its Creator who knows where He is headed with history. This confidence will give hope and joy even in times of difficulty and confusion.
About the team
The Interlocked curriculum was developed by members of Anchored International. The lessons were reviewed and edited by Charles Clough, founder of Bible Framework Ministries and board member of Chafer Theological Seminary.
A little backstory
When two writers of the Anchored team were looking for good Bible curriculum to prepare their teenage children for adulthood, they were introduced to Charlie Clough's Bible Framework series.
As the family studied Charlie's lectures, the parents began to distill the content into their own family notes. The goal was to provide their children with a curriculum they could use to train their own future families.
At the Lord's leading, the family notes became Interlocked and the Anchored team members began teaching small groups.
God orchestrated a meeting with Charlie and he expressed interest in Interlocked. He had wanted to create a "family edition" of the Bible Framework and so he collaborated with the two writers. He spent time reviewing and editing the Interlocked lessons and that resulted in the final version now on this website.
Just as the team has benefitted so much from the Bible Framework and Interlocked, the team's prayer is that many more in the body of Christ will benefit from investing the time to gain a thoroughly biblical framework to understand God, themselves and the world from the Creator's perspective.