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If you were helping a couple build a stable marriage, where would you begin? What would be your starting point? What is the main thing that you would want to establish in their minds to help them? Their starting point, also called a presupposition, will determine the kind of marriage they will have with each other. A presupposition provides the lens through which they will interpret, understand, and respond to each other. A couple needs to have the correct presupposition and a practical plan that logically flows out of that presupposition to do life well with each other. Suppose you can help them determine a biblical presupposition through which they can build their life and marriage and construct a practical plan that flows out of that presupposition. In that case, they will be on a redemptive and restorative path to glorify God, benefit each other, and proclaim to the world the goodness, power, and fame of God.
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We all have a presupposition, a way of thinking about who we are and how we relate to each other. This presuppositional filter through which we see and interpret life influences and shapes the steps that we take throughout our lives. The way we communicate, the motives for our anger, how we think about sex, and our responses to each other are predetermined by our interpretive filter. Imagine a child growing up in an authoritarian familial environment or a new convert getting his religious feet wet in a legalist church culture. In either case, those contexts will curve their lens, distorting their perceptions and challenging their future marital relationships.
Nobody has a 20/20 lens because of Adamic fallenness and other adverse shaping influences, so it’s imperative at the beginning of any study to carefully examine why we see, interpret, and respond to life the way that we do.
There are four elements to a presuppositional worldview, with each element building upon the previous one. You can discern your presupposition by examining each element and answering the four fundamental questions that each element asks.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it (Matthew 7:24-27).
A simple question to get the ball rolling could be, “Upon what do you want to build your life, marriage, and family?” This question is a life-trajectory inquiry. How you answer the question will determine everything else that unfolds in your life and marriage. It will establish the kind of life you will experience as a couple, the career you choose, and your closest companions who will influence your decisions. If you are married and have not had a discussion with your spouse about what you want to build your marriage and family upon, let’s have this conversation soon. Make your first life-over-coffee date, including this book, as an opportunity to craft a life plan that answers this foundational question.
If you’re about to be married, you’re in a great place, with an excellent opportunity to discuss the most important thing you could talk about with your future spouse. This conversation could be one of the most important ones that you will ever have. After you establish your presupposition, you can begin developing a plan that practically executes your presupposition with God and each other. So what about it?
Perhaps looking at some of the options—temptations—that define people will alert you to any weaknesses in your presupposition or affirm the clarity that you already have.
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22).
Fortunately, Paul answered the question regarding what should be the makeup of our presuppositional lens through which we see and respond to life. He gave a brief answer, settling the matter once and for all. Jesus Christ is the Person upon which we construct our lives, marriages, families, and relationships. He is the foundation or, as Paul said, He is the cornerstone in whom the whole structure grows. If Christ is not the foundation, then the structure of our lives will not endure. Christ and His Word are eternal, reducing all other foundations to transitory and unstable. As you think about the foundation of your life, make a case for Christ as your presuppositional point of departure.
Should somebody ask you the question about what defines your life, marriage, and family, you can briefly respond by saying your life, marriage, and family are built upon nothing less than the “Person and work of Christ,” the gospel. Christ and the gospel are the same; He is the good news. The gospel must define and determine our lives. Every Christian should learn how to build their lives on Christ. It would be a helpful exercise to play the devil’s advocate as you consider these matters. If Christ is not the best choice upon which to build your life, what is a better one? By reflecting on the alternatives, you should find yourself firmly fixed on the only correct answer. If someone were to ask you why you are constructing your life on Christ, you can respond by saying it is because you are a Christian, a Christ-follower.
A Christo-centric presupposition is who you are, and it’s how you are to live. Let’s assume you have been born a second time (John 3:7). If so, you are a follower of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). You do not serve any other master (Matthew 6:24), leading you to conclude that there is no other option for you but to build your life upon, other than the One who regenerated you, gave you His righteousness, will sanctify you, and hold you guiltless in the day of His glorious return. You could be thinking this is quite elementary. Honestly, I hope it is. It would be fantastic if this worldview were true about all Christians. However, it’s just not the case. Many gods compete to rule our lives (Exodus 20:3).
For the sake of argument, you know what defines you, and it is Christ. Furthermore, you are building your life upon this eternal foundation. Upon this three-step foundation, you can move to the fourth and last element: Determine how to live practically according to your presupposition. The danger for any of us is that we can articulate the elementary responses, which is our orthodoxy—common sense theology that is nested in our minds. However, when it comes to the practicalization of the gospel in our everyday lives, we find it hard to live outside the academy. I have spent a lifetime counseling astute, articulate academics who knew more about the Bible than me. Their problems were not in the classroom, which can give the impression that we have our lives together. Their trouble was an inability to maintain a reasonable continuum from the knowledge they knew and the lives they lived.
Making it practical is always the challenging part of the Christian life. It is one thing to say that we believe in Christ. Still, it is an entirely different matter to live in authentic, relevant, and practical Christlike ways that have transformative rulership over our hearts and redemptive influence on others (James 2:19). This fourth element of my presuppositional linkage is where many people become befuddled. Some Christians give up at this point because they do not know how to live like the practical Jesus. Though they know that they are to put Christ on display in their lives and that they are to make His name fabulous, there is an unresolvable mystery about how to accomplish this objective practically. The practicalization of the gospel is not as elementary as saying, “I’m a Christ follower.”
Throughout this chapter, I have asked you several questions. Before you move on to the next chapter, will you spend time answering each one of them? As mentioned in the introduction, the primary goal is not to get through this book. Neither is it to read once and put on your shelf. Books like these have limited value if they do not lead us into practical transformation. Thus, it’s the mastery of the material that I have in view here, not the completion of it. As you collect the questions that I have asked you already, you can add these to the mix.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
