Why a Biblical Worldview Is Necessary

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If I offered you a billion dollars, would you sit up and take notice?! Hi, I’m Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Before we get going on today’s Revive Our Hearts, I want to take a moment to beg you to take advantage of an opportunity that is worth way more than a billion dollars! 

It’s spending time in God’s Word and in prayer on a daily basis. In Psalm 119:14, the author says: “I rejoiced in the way revealed by Your decrees [the Scriptures, the Bible] as much as in all riches” (CSB).

All riches! Let that sink in. So, no, I don’t have a billion dollars to offer you; I have something that’s worth even more, daily devotional time with the Lord. All this year many joined us in reading through the Bible over the course of 2026. 

Here’s what Denise had to say after she read Jeremiah chapters 30 and 31. She said, 

God’s commitment to us is awesome! He makes it known over and over in these chapters. His promises to love and renew are for us, too. I love that we can live in the knowledge of His everlasting love!

Gems like that are worth more than a sack of diamonds! You can be a part of it. In fact, today, September 29, is the day we’re starting in the New Testament. We’re reading the opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew.

If you’ve not already done so, you can sign up to receive daily reminder emails when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026, and discover for yourself the treasure of God’s Word! Now, here’s today’s edition of Revive Our Hearts.

Dannah Gresh: Christian parents desire for their kids to make wise choices. According to pastor and author Jeff Keaton, it’s ultimately a question of heart transformation.

Pastor Jeff Keaton: If our children choose a path of righteousness, it will produce a much better life. But if they don’t get to Jesus, then we’re just playing games.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast for September 29, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh, and our host is the author of A Place of Quiet Rest, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. 

Nancy: Even though I don’t have biological children, my heart is burdened to see the truth of God’s Word passed on to future generations. It’s a huge responsibility that falls largely on the shoulders of parents . . . but grandparents and mentors play an important role, too. 

The Lord designed it this way. In Deuteronomy 4:9, you remember how Moses told the people: 

Be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mindas long as you live. [And here’s the familiar part; he said] Teach them to your children and your grandchildren.

He goes on: 

Today, recognize and keep in mind that the LORD is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other. Keep his statutes and commands, which I am giving you today, so that you and your children after you may prosper and so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you for all time. (vv. 9, 39–40)

And, of course, there are many more passages like that one, where God expresses His desire that we obey His Word and teach coming generations to obey. Well, obedience flows out of right thinking. And our guest today is here to help us think about our thinking. I’ll let him explain.

Jeff Keaton is the founder and chairman of a ministry called Renew A Nation. Over the years he’s served as a pastor, a church planter, an educator, and an author. He’s passionate about seeing lost people come to know Jesus, encouraging Christians to surrender completely to Christ, and helping children develop a biblical worldview.

I first heard about Jeff through a friend, and then I was reminded of his ministry at a Collingsworth Family concert, where they mentioned his book Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy.

Dannah Gresh sat down with Jeff not long ago to talk about this whole idea of helping children develop a biblical worldview. We’ll hear Part 1 of their conversation now, and then pick it back up on tomorrow’s edition of Revive Our Hearts. Here’s Dannah, speaking with Jeff Keaton.

Why Our Children Need the Truth

Dannah: Jeff, I'm so excited about our conversation today because we have, I think, kindred hearts for the next generation. The first question I want to ask you is, “When you look at the children growing up in our world right now, what are your concerns?”

Jeff: My primary concern is they are absolutely not being taught the truth . . . in every sphere of our culture. I’ve had a big involvement in education, but far beyond education, you've got pop culture and the media and the family. Even Christian families are failing to teach children the truth.

And so we have the chaos that we see all around us in the lives of children, because they’re not tethered to anything! My big concern is that we’ve got to regain access to the hearts and minds of children and pour God’s truth into them—that gives them such a hopeful future! So, that’s my number one concern right now.

Dannah: Okay, that resonates with my heart. I would add to it, not only are they not being fed the truth, but they are in a constant stream of screamed lies! They’re on TikTok; they’re on SnapChat, YouTube, wherever. 

I heard a so-called Christian influencer the other day who literally said, “Jesus told us the way to be saved. It’s to feed the poor and to take care of the widows.” And I was like, “Wait, whoa!” 

But unless a child is in the Word, they wouldn’t know that, yes, feeding the poor and caring for widows is a fruit of salvation. But Jesus said you can do nothing for your own salvation: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6).

So, I would say that the two-headed problem is: they’re not getting the truth they need and they’re getting constant lies! 

Jeff: Absolutely! 

What Is a Biblical Worldview?

Dannah: You have spoken a lot about the fact that what we need to give our children is a “worldview.” What is a worldview?

Jeff: Basically, a worldview is a person’s core set of beliefs. I like to say every adult already has a fully developed worldview of some kind, and every child is in the process of developing their worldview or their core set of beliefs.

I know that you like George Barna. Every time I hear him speak, he says he’s concluded after forty years of research that the worldview, or the core set of beliefs, a child has at the age of 13 is statistically the worldview or core set of beliefs they will die with. And so, worldview sounds kind of philosophical, but it’s not. It’s just a person’s core set of beliefs, and that core set of beliefs drives every single decision a person makes. 

You came into your studio today because of your beliefs that what you’re doing is meaningful and that you need to do this. I have elderly saints come up to me all across America as I am speaking and say, “Jeff! What in the world is wrong with all these children today? They’re crazy! They’ve lost their minds!” 

I say, “They’re not crazy. They’ve been lied to!” They have adopted a false worldview, a false core set of beliefs, and therefore they are doing all these crazy things. To them, it makes perfect sense. 

I was speaking in Michigan and a high school senior came up to me and said, “There’s this girl in my school and she barks all day long, and the school will not stop her because she believes she is a dog!” 

I mean to us, to people to whom I say things normally, or based on truth, that’s insanity! To this girl, somebody lied to her so much that she thinks barking like a dog all day is normal! And so, yeah, we’re in a mess because of the lies that are being pumped into the hearts and minds of our children.

Start Teaching Truth Early

Dannah: And you’re saying that 13 is a really important age. I would ask, a lot of us as parents don’t take our children’s faith as seriously before they’re 13, but it’s like, “Well, after they’re 13 is when we need to start to talk to them about worldview and theology and things like that.” And what you just said made me think, Oh, that might be too late!

Jeff: Oh, it’s absolutely too late! I shared the gospel with my oldest daughter, Julianna, before she could understand the gospel, I guarantee it. I started as early as possible, and assumed that they were going to pick up more than most people thought they could.

When I launched a Christian school many years ago in 2002, at that time I’d been a pastor for about twenty years, people would come to my church and say, “If I can only afford a Christian education for my child when they’re elementary students or when they’re in high school, which one should I pick?”

And early as a pastor I would say, “Send your kids to a Christian school in high school, because they have drugs [in public school] and there’s everything. . .”

But here’s what happened: when I launched a Christian school and started getting kids in the eighth and ninth grades from Christian homes who attended my church, who had not received any kind of a Christian education up until eighth and ninth grade, guess what? By the time I got them, they did not have a well-developed God-consciousness. I was shocked at how hard it was to communicate basic Christian truth to these kids!

 

But when I got these kids in kindergarten and I had them all the way up, their God-consciousness was so huge that it was not hard to communicate God’s thoughts to them. And so, I am 100 percent convinced that we must teach our children God’s truth from the earliest days of their lives, in every way possible!

I’m not trying to be dogmatic or cause a fight, but I’m a fan of little children sitting in to hear adult preachers and speakers. So recently, I was speaking down at First Baptist Woodstock. I was speaking there for The King’s Academy, and the event was held in the sanctuary at First Baptist. I took my 7-year-old grandson with me that day. I had to speak three times to all the faculty and staff at King’s Academy, and then I had to speak that night to parents. My grandson who’s 7 lives on a 2,000 acre farm. He has his own gas-powered four-wheeler that he’s already paid for—at 7 years of age he’s earned all the money! He’s an incredible little boy!

He sat and listened to me speak for three fifty-minute speeches to the faculty and staff during the day and a forty-five-minute speech to the parents at night. We were driving out of Atlanta the next morning. I had told two stories in those speeches about atheists that I had talked to in planes. 

My 7-year-old grandson said to me, “Papaw, can you believe there’s all those atheists on planes?” I didn’t know the kid was even listening to me, okay, he was just sitting there! And he was amazed that people wouldn’t believe in God!

Now this is my 7-year-old, who’s listening to a guy talk about worldview for four straight hours the day before. So my point is, kids can learn so much more than we think they can learn, and so much earlier! So yes, we should pump God’s truth into them from the earliest days of their lives!

Dannah: We have a podcast here at Revive Our Hearts called True Girl. We did a season on false teachers. We wanted to teach 7–12 year-old girls how when they’re hearing something to identify if it is not true according to the Word of God.

I listened to it with my 6-year-old granddaughters. They’re a little underaged for it, but I thought, I wonder if they’re going to get this? They listened to the teaching, and I asked, “What does that say?”

And they said, “That some people who say they are Christians are saying things that aren’t true in the Bible.” 

And I was like, “Yes! And what do you call them?” 

And they said, “Well, false teachers or wolves.” 

They got it! They’re six, and they got it! 

Jeff: Totally! 

A Biblical Worldview Is Not a Guarantee

Dannah: It’s just a matter of us introducing it to them. Now, let me play the devil’s advocate for just a moment before we dive into why our kids need this worldview. I want to know, are there some reasons why they need it? And, how do we do it?

It seems like, without context, you are saying that if we just present all the truths to our kids, they’re going to live better lives, and they’re going to behave differently. But I know that you don’t believe that. I know that presenting them with a worldview that is thoroughly biblical doesn’t guarantee that their behavior is going to honor the Lord, or even that they’ll surrender their lives to Jesus. 

Jeff: Yes, 100 percent. I actually make that statement in my book: there is no absolute guarantee that if we give our children a biblical worldview that they will all choose the path of righteousness. At least, that’s what I’ve discovered. However, if we do not give them a biblical worldview, there is a guarantee that they will go astray and break our hearts! So, the bottom line is this: my biggest concern was getting my children to Jesus Christ.

They had to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit in order to long for Him and to want to know His Word and to be able to fully understand His Word. I don’t want to get into any theological debates, but I believe with all of my heart that my girls were both saved somewhere between 8 and 12.

And the reason I say that is, first of all, I had a phenomenal lady in our church who had a huge influence in teaching our children in our church, along with what Michelle and I were doing. People used to say to me, “Oh, you wait until the teen years; they’re going to be terrible!”

The teen years were not terrible . . . and my girls are super strong-willed. Did they tell me a couple times that they thought I was being ridiculous? Yes! But the bottom line is, they had a relationship with the Lord, and they loved Him, and they wanted to please Him more than they wanted to please their dad.

So, I’m not a moralist. I don’t just want to get our kids to behave, even though I do know that if our children choose a path of righteousness, it will produce a much better life. But if they don’t get to Jesus, then we’re just playing games.

Dannah: Yes, it’s about that relationship, it’s about an authentic relationship with Him. I like to say this as a mom, and now as a grandma: I like to pray as if it entirely depends on Jesus—because it does—but then I like to teach as if it does depend on me, because I want to be responsible with what the Lord’s entrusted to me. 

Okay, let’s talk about some of the reasons our kids today need a biblical worldview. What’s one?

Jeff: If we don’t teach them God’s truth, they’re going to live miserable lives. I’m just being honest with you. I’m so convinced that the biblical worldview is the only one that works out well in the real world. 

So, for example, what does God say? One man, one woman, come together for a lifetime, raise children. Look at all the research: the healthiest, happiest children on earth are children whose mom and dad stay together for a lifetime!

I’ve seen research that says even moms and dads who are not following God’s good design, and they’re arguing and fussing in the home a ton, their kids come out healthier than if the parents divorce, and they live in peace and quiet with just one parent.

So, the reason why we must give our children a biblical worldview is, if we do not, they’re going to have a life of continuous pain and suffering and sorrow. To violate God’s good design and to allow your children to think that’s a good way to live their life is really to relegate them to a life of sadness and suffering.

And then, you and I apparently both have grandchildren now. As a parent, if we hadn’t led our children to Jesus and taught them His truth, we would be suffering immensely today as we watch them not train our six grandchildren!

And so, Christianity is true, it’s good, and it’s beautiful! Their lives can be true, good, and beautiful if they will know the Lord and follow His plan.

Dannah: Where in the Scriptures could we turn to for a promise that if our children live according to God’s Word, there are blessings associated with that?

Jeff: Well obviously, everybody knows the Scripture, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6 KJV).

And some people have tried to say to me, “Well, I trained my kids and look . . . they don’t serve the Lord today. So that didn’t work out for me.” 

I don’t think it’s an absolute guarantee, like you said earlier, that if you train your children . . . but that promise is very true. If we will train our children, even if they do go astray at some point, they will have the seeds of truth sown and borne into their soul that will bring them back home.

Dannah: I have three children all at different (I think) levels of being sold out to Jesus. I watch as one who is struggling a little bit, when she goes through a difficulty, she returns to the truth. She returns to prayer. It’s planted in there. She’s not where I would like her to be yet, right now, but there’s evidence that the truth is rooted. 

And I think that’s what you’re saying. That the promise—even if you don’t see that result that you want right away—is in there for when he is older, “he will not depart from it.”

Jeff: I’m just really passionate first of all that we don’t give up on children if at 18 they’re not exactly where they should be with the Lord.

I live in Virginia now. When I moved to Virginia, I took a church that had the mentality that kind of said, “All of our children will ‘sow their wild oats.’ When they get to 18, they’re going to sow their wild oats.” And I rejected that with everything in my bosom!

Here’s what they would say, “Well, we taught them the truth. They’ll sow their wild oats in their twenties, but when they’re late twenties or thirties and have children, then they’re going to come back to the faith.”

That kind of used to work when a kid had a biblical worldview but had rejected walking with the Lord. But what happened was they would lose their heart, but they had their mind, and they mostly came back to the faith later on.

What started happening twenty or thirty years ago, not only did they lose their hearts, but we have lost their minds, and so they stopped coming back to the faith. But a child who has had God’s truth planted deeply in their soul, the chance of them coming home to the faith is very high . . . even if they stray for a while.

Dannah: And we do see kids straying; we see a lot of that right now. But the evidence is also suggesting that a great number of them come back after even a year. But just because there’s a straying and just because there’s a sowing of the wild oats, that might be normal, but that doesn’t mean it’s God’s best.

Jeff: No, it’s not!

Dannah: We excuse all kinds of things as normal—depression and anxiety may be normal, being frenemies or being bullies may be normal, having body image issues may be normal. But God’s Word gives us some prescriptions to fight against those things and not just accept them as, “This is a rite of passage. They’re going to go through this.” Right?

Jeff: Absolutely!

Dannah: So, one reason we want them to have a Christian biblical worldview is so that they will enjoy their life and live a better life. What are some others? I’ve heard you teach about these.

Planting Truth for the Future

Jeff: Well, for one thing, again, we want to pass the Christian faith on to generations to come, you know. 

Sometimes I tell a story about a man I met on a plane. He was 30 years of age, roughly. When I sat down he said, “What do you do for a living?” As soon as I told him what I did he said, “Oh, you’re a man of faith. Well, I’m a man of facts. I’m an agnostic.”

That started a super intense discussion about worldview. It was a long flight, from L.A. to Washington. The first thing he said to me was, “You know why I don’t like you Christians?” 

I said, “Why?” 

He said, “Because you hate homosexuals.” That’s the first thing he said out of his mouth.

I said, “Well, let me just tell you about some homosexuals I’ve cared for. Yes, I believe it’s sin. It’s not productive. It destroys people’s lives. But I love every human being.” And I told him stories about homosexuals I’ve cared for.

And long story short, about halfway into that talk, he stopped me and he said, “Let me tell you something. My grandmother on the one side is a Southern Baptist woman and my grandmother on the other side is Mennonite woman. And my name is Matthew Adam.”

And when he said that to me, it hit me. Thirty years earlier, two little Christian grandmothers were called to a hospital to pick up their beautiful, little grandson whose mother perhaps thought so highly of the Scripture she named him Matthew Adam.

I’m on a plane with him thirty years later, and he doesn’t believe one single thing his parents or grandparents believed—not one! I mean, he was vile against it; he was hardcore against Christianity.

So another reason we must give them a biblical worldview is, we don’t want to be one generation away. It’s like Scripture says about Joshua. He and all his generation served the Lord, but we get down to a generation or two below and it says, “They did not know the Lord or the things that the Lord had done for Israel.”

That shocks me every time I read that each year as I’m reading through the Bible! How could those not too far down from Joshua know nothing about the walls of Jericho? They don’t know anything about the Lord!?

So, if we’re not super-faithful, we can have grandchildren or great-grandchildren who know nothing about the Lord! I’ve had that as a pastor. Many people have walked into my office whose lives are a million miles from God’s design and they’ll say, “Oh, my grandmother, she loved the Lord!” 

I mean it was their grandmother. I’m talking to their grandkid, and they just got out of prison or whatever.

Dannah: What do you say to the grandmother who—I don’t know this guy—but maybe they are still praying for him. Maybe they did plant truth in him. What do you say to the woman who’s listening right now who says, “I have a grandson like that. What do I do now, right now? I’m praying for him. How do I interact with him? Do I confront him? Do I wait for him to come to me?” What advice do you have for them when they do depart from the faith?

Love Them, Pray, and Stand on Truth

Jeff: I actually have some serious encouragement, because I’ve thought a lot through this. I have many elderly grandparents come to me in my office as pastor and say something like this to me, “Pastor Jeff, I think I’m the only one that’s really praying for my lost grandchild.” (Or maybe it’s a son or a daughter.) And they would say, “I’m getting ready to go to heaven! Who’s going to pray for my wayward children or grandchildren when I die, Pastor?” I have literally heard that over and over again! 

I told them this, “Listen to me, every prayer you’ve ever prayed for a lost or wayward child or a grandchild has been deposited eternally in the heart of a God who never dies!” And so I would say to them that, “Long after you’re gone, God will still be answering these prayers!”

So, you love them, you pray for them. Don’t tell them you’re going to cut them out of your will if they don’t behave and come to church with you. Don’t try to manipulate them to Christ. You can’t do it! It won’t work! You love them. You pray for them until your dying breath.

 

And the other thing I used to tell them was, “Speak words to them when you’re dying, if you can.” The reason I said that was because I was on the other side of this coin many times. I would have somebody in my office, or I was in their home or business, and I would be leading them to Christ. And as soon as they trusted in Christ to save them, they would have tears running down their cheeks and they’d say something like this to me: “Oh Pastor, I wish my grandmother could be here! The last thing she said to me before she died was, “Son, please trust Christ for salvation, and meet me in heaven someday.”

I had that experience with 50-, 60-, 70-year-old people. So, what was happening? Their mother or father or grandfather or whomever had prayed for them was gone for thirty years! I got the privilege of harvesting those prayers that God brought those people to salvation with, many years later! 

So, if you’re listening and you have a wayward child or a wayward grandchild, first of all, don’t ever be harsh to them. 

I have grandparents come up to me and tell me their kids are transgender. I go to church with a man who’s got a granddaughter who has taken so many hormones that she has a long, red beard now. I saw the man last night at church, and he’s just heartbroken. This guy struggles not to be mean to this girl. And so I tell him, “You’ve got to love her! Jesus is the only One who can save her. You can’t save her through manipulation, etc.”

So if you’re out there and you’re listening and you have someone like this, first of all just shower them with love and kindness! Don’t preach at them every time they come into your world. Just love them with all your heart!

And when God allows you to share truth with them, do it. But I don’t think harshness and meanness and telling them they're weirdos, and “you’ve betrayed your family”. . . I don’t think that’s going to get them anywhere.

Pray, stand on truth—I don’t believe you should compromise truth. Pray for them until your dying breath, and expect Jesus to move in their life!

Dannah: You know, my husband and I adopted a girl when she was 14 years old from China. And when she was 16, she made a profession of faith. That was very hard-prayed for, especially from my other daughter. 

And many years down the road, that daughter from China said, “I had a grandma that everyone thought was weird because she was a Christian and went to church. She would tell me about Jesus and pray.” She remembered the prayers of that grandma!

She died when Autumn was pretty young, but she still remembered those prayers when she was like 20 years old. She believed that her salvation at 16 was the fruit of that deposit. 

Jeff: Wow. I have no doubt!

Nancy: Such encouraging words for anyone who might be praying for a young person who’s wandered far from the Lord. Don’t give up. Keep praying! And then, parents, grandparents—really anyone who interacts with kids—how can you be more intentional in helping the young ones in your life develop a biblical worldview?

We’ve been listening to the first part of a helpful conversation my co-host, Dannah Gresh had with Jeff Keaton. Jeff wrote a book called Saving Our Children in a World Gone Crazy. The subtitle is Why We Must Give Our Children a Biblical Worldview. Amen, amen, amen! That’s my amen to that title! We must do that!

We’re including a link to Jeff’s book in the transcript of this program, at ReviveOurHearts.com, along with a link to the organization Jeff leads called Renew a Nation. I hope you’ll check those out.

Dannah: Yeah, again, you’ll find those links embedded within today’s transcript, at ReviveOurHearts.com. And don’t forget our month-long gift-of-any-amount resource! As our thanks to you for your any-size donation to Revive Our Hearts, we’ll send you your own copy of the study Devoted. 

When you work your way through this workbook, you’ll study the lives of:

• Abraham’s wife, Sarah
• The Shunammite woman who lived during the prophet Elisha’s time
• Mary the mother of Jesus
• Hannah the mother of Samuel 
• Anna the prophetess in the temple who met baby Jesus
• And the woman at the well who had a shameful past but was transformed by her encounter with the Savior. 

It’s a six-week study you can do on your own or with a friend. To make a donation and request the Bible study featuring those six women, contact us at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Tomorrow we’ll hear more from Jeff Keaton. He’ll continue talking about the importance of your example in the lives of the children you invest in. I hope you’ll join us for that tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts!

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ!

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