"Let me begin by defining two terms: first, world view, and then world-view confusion. A world view is a set of presuppositions (or assumptions) which we hold (consciously or unconsciously) about the basic make-up of our world. As Alvin Toffler says, 'Every person carries in his head a mental model of the world--a subjective representation of external reality.' This mental model acts as a giant filing cabinet; it contains a slot for every item of information coming to us.
If, for example, we see a beast approaching us as we are walking down the sidewalk, it is important that we have the mental filing slots for the data that will help us decide whether the beast is a dog or a lion; and if a dog, a friendly or an unfriendly one. Our physical well-being depends on an adequate understanding of the possibilities.
The world flings itself at us in a constant barrage of data--the data of our five sense, the messages of ordinary conversation, of traffic signals, of billboards and books, of radio and television [and the internet]. Our mental and spiritual health depends on having a frame of reference that can sort out the useful from the useless, the meaningful from the meaningless, the trivial from the profound.
The problem is this: when a new idea comes our way, what are we going to do with it? How will we identify and label it so that we can make it a congenial part of our mental furniture? This is an ongoing problem in everyone's life. But it is especially important when dealing with the Bible.
We need to be sure we are correctly understanding its message, for it is God himself who speaks to us through it. In short, we need to avoid world-view confusion. And that brings us to the second key term.
World-view confusion occurs when a reader of Scripture fails to interpret the Bible within the intellectual and broadly cultural framework of the Bible itself and uses instead a foreign frame of reference. In other words, rather than seeing a statement of Scripture as a part of the whole biblical scheme of things, the reader or interpreter views it from a different standpoint and thus distorts the Bible, perhaps seriously, sometimes even reversing the meaning."
- James W. Sire
from: http://www.amazon.com/Scripture-Twisting-Cults-Misread-Bible/dp/0877846111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379614889&sr=8-1&keywords=twisting+scripture
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