If you’re a Christian, you’ve probably heard these words or maybe even said them:

I used to _______ when I was in the world.

Be in the world but not of the world.

Since I began studying medieval maps, such phrases jar me.

I know some of these ideas are biblical. Jesus prayed, “I  have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:14). But it seems that when we cite verses like this, the world becomes something dirty. Something we can’t wait to get away from and something that Jesus would surely reject. There is nothing spiritual about the world.

Whenever I hear any of these phrases about “the world,” the image of a medieval map pops into my head. I know that makes me strange. But the fact is, these maps have changed how I understand terms that are popular in evangelical circles.

When Christians talk about “the world,” we often use the term metaphorically. It means the way we live or part of our culture that we don’t like. It’s the part we want to reject.

But medieval maps show the world literally. Take a look at the Ebstorf Map below. Here is the world – the beautiful world God created at the beginning of time. The world Jesus came to redeem. The world with its teeming humanity, its breathtaking beauty, and, yes, its perennial problems. On this map, Jesus does not reject the world. In the city of Jerusalem, at the very center, he saves it.

But there is more. Take another look at the circumference of the Ebstorf Map, and you will see Jesus’ head, hands, and feet peeping out. The world becomes Christ’s body. Jesus exists in intimate relationship with it.

I look at this map, and it’s impossible for me not to love the world, as Jesus clearly does. “For God so loved the world . . . ” I see it as something beautiful, something deeply spiritual. Perhaps Jesus is not of the world; but the world is of him. It is part of his very being.

Our world has problems, yes. It has sin. It is fallen. But Jesus is making all things new. The world is groaning as if in childbirth, but Jesus has promised to deliver it.

This world is also where our work is. God has placed us here. We don’t leave the world behind when we become Christians. We don’t need to hide from it. Instead, we struggle in it and with it. We love it because Jesus made it. And by following Jesus, we participate in its redemption.

So, thanks to medieval maps, my Christian vocabulary is ruined. I am genuinely surprised when I hear “the world” spoken of negatively. I do a double take. When I hear someone say, “When I was in the world . . . ” I think, “Well, where are you now?” Because I, for one, am still right here. I am of Jesus.

Let’s reclaim “the world.” And breathlessly await what Jesus is doing in it!