Through the lens of the plan of salvation, we gain perspective that helps us deal with questions, everyday frustrations, and even crippling challenges.
This devotional was given on January 9, 2018.
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"In 1962, Thomas Kuhn published a book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which he set forth his view that development in scientific knowledge did not progress in a linear, continuous fashion but rather through periodic radical changes in the framework through which scientific questions are considered. Kuhn called these radical changes “paradigm shifts.” While the validity of Kuhn’s theory has been extensively debated in the last fifty years, there is little dispute that his book brought the terms paradigm shift and paradigm into popular culture.
Today, dictionaries broadly define a paradigm as “a philosophical or theoretical framework.” It is a set of principles or ideas that provides a particular way of interpreting events. One textbook explains:
A paradigm is . . . a way of thinking about or viewing the world. . . .
A paradigm is like the lens on a pair of glasses. . . . If you put on red glasses, everything looks red. If you put on pink glasses, the world looks pink. If you put on yellow glasses, everything around you looks more yellow.
All of us view events through particular paradigms or lenses. If the lenses are accurate, the paradigm enhances our understanding and knowledge. If they are distorted, we sometimes make mistakes, which causes a paradigm shift. Let me illustrate with a short video. [The video portrayed a conversation between two men over a ship radio arguing who will change course. The ship’s captain insists the other change his course to avoid collision, only to find out the other voice is speaking from a lighthouse.] Now that is what you might call a paradigm shift.
There have always been competing paradigms in every discipline and, more important, in the overall cultures in which we live. This is especially evident in today’s society, in which people can view the same event and reach dramatically different conclusions, not only as to what the event means but even as to what actually happened.
Given the confusion that these competing paradigms seem to engender, we are blessed to live in a time and situation in which we have modern-day revelation to provide a more complete and accurate framework in which all our lives’ events, both individually and globally, can be better understood. While these latter-day revelations in one sense have effectuated a remarkable paradigm shift in religious understanding, in another sense they are really a restoration of a paradigm or framework that God provided to His children from the beginning of time—a framework for understanding all the events in the world, from before its creation and extending through its future millennial season into the eternities. This framework or paradigm has various names. “In the scriptures God’s plan is called a merciful plan, the plan of happiness, the plan of redemption, and the plan of salvation.”" — Kevin J Worthen
