REVEALED: How do we know about God?

KNOWLEDGE
Facilitator’s Guide

OVERVIEW:
This lesson will help students become more familiar with the different ways people can learn about
God. Through “general revelation” God reveals himself to humanity in broad ways. This includes what
we can learn about him through his creation and through the moral compass that he placed on our
hearts. Through “special revelation” God reveals himself to us in specific, intimate ways. Every time
you open a Bible, you read God’s special revelation to the world. When God entered the world in the
person of Jesus of Nazareth, he encountered humanity in an especially intimate and revelatory way.

LEADER’S NOTE: More Bible verses about general revelation: Psalm 19:1–6, Romans 1:18–20.
More Bible verses about special revelation: Matthew 5:17–18, John 14:8–11, Hebrews 1:1–2.

OPENING QUESTIONS:
• How did you originally get to know your best friend?
• What did you have to learn about them before you felt really close? What did you have to do togeth-
er before you ended up as best friends?

WHAT THE BIBLE HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT:

How do you know things about God? If you’re reading this, you’ve likely read about God in the Bible.
That means you have access to “special revelation”—specific knowledge about God that
he revealed through his word. But what if you couldn’t read? What if you’d never seen a Bible? Could
you still learn anything about God? It’s hard to believe, but some people actually live in
that situation. Despite modern technology a number of tribes have never been contacted by the out-
side world. They’ve never even heard of the Bible.

But if someone has never even had access to a Bible, how can God be Lord of their life? How can
they know to worship him, or follow him? When they come face to face with God, will
people from un-contacted tribes be able to say, “We didn’t have access to Bibles. We had no way of
knowing that we were supposed to worship you”? That’s where “general revelation” comes in. General
revelation is what you can know about God from the things around you in the world: the sky, plants,
trees, animals, the brilliance of a sunset, and even other humans. God is knowable in the beauty of
the world and the intricacy of his creation. As the Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork,” (Ps. 19:1). General revelation is also the moral compass
we’re all born with. Almost all humans throughout history believe some things are wrong—like murder.
Wrote that moral code on our hearts.

In Acts 10, Luke tells the story of a man named Cornelius and his encounter with Peter. Cornelius
was familiar with God, but he had never heard anything specific about Jesus. When Peter delivers the
“special revelation” about Jesus to Cornelius, note the significance of this encounter and the

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 REVEALED: How do we know about God? KNOWLEDGE

importance of special revelation to Cornelius. Just before the section you’ll read, God told Cornelius to
send messengers to Peter, who received a vision from God preparing him to meet with Cornelius.

Read: Acts 10:17–48

LEADER’S NOTE: General revelation is never contradictory to what we know about God through
special revelation. God is unchanging and consistent, so the knowledge we obtain through any
revelation is also unchanging and consistent (Heb. 13:8, Ps. 119:89, James 1:17). The Bible warns
us of false prophets who will try to manipulate the truth, pitting general and special revelation
against each other and making God look inconsistent (2 Tim. 4:3–4, 1 John 4:1, 2 Pet. 2:1).

Discuss:
• Why does Cornelius want Peter to come visit him?
•W  hat message does Peter bring to Cornelius? What “special revelation”—specific knowledge about
Jesus—does Peter offer to Cornelius?
• If you were given the opportunity that Peter had to tell someone more about Jesus, what would you
say?

A SECOND LOOK:
John Wycliffe was controversial. He believed that the church shouldn’t be in charge of the government
and that all people should be able to read the Bible, not just church leaders. Wait, you don’t think that
sounds controversial? Today, those things sound pretty obvious. But back in the 1300s, these ideas
were outrageous. Wycliffe was a leading philosopher and theologian at Oxford, and he was one of
the first people to believe these things. When he shared them publically, people were so bothered by
his beliefs that they called him a heretic. In fact, 30 years after he died, his enemies dug up his body,
burned it, and scattered the remains. That’s harsh.

Today, his reputation is a lot better. Wycliffe understood the importance of special revelation, and he
dedicated a lot of time near the end of his life to translating the Bible into language normal people
could understand. He determined that an encounter with the Bible, God’s special revelation, was so
important that he opposed the religious leaders of his day to get it into the hands of common people.
It was a risky move, but he was willing to deal with the consequences. Every time you open your Bible
and read a few verses, you can thank people like John Wycliffe.

Discuss:
•W  ould you risk your life to make the Bible more accessible?
• Imagine that all you know of the Bible comes from what you’ve heard in church. How much
of the Bible would you know? Would you have an accurate idea of what was in it?
•D  o you think reading the Bible for yourself is an important part of a relationship
with Christ? Why or why not?

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REVEALED: and do
Effect
we know about God? KNOWLEDGE
RESCUE

RATE IT: Give yourself a 1–5 rating. How often do you interact with God’s special revelation, the
Bible?
1 3 5
Never. I don’t pick Not very often. Often. I study the
up the Bible and I read the Bible Bible regularly at
read it. in church. home and take its
lessons to heart.
LIVE IT OUT: Revealed in Nature
What you will need: A few nature photographs. You can find these online or check out a few books. If
you don’t know where to look, start with a photographer like Ansel Adams.

Let the group gather around the nature photographs you brought in. Say something like: In light of
what you learned about general revelation, let’s make a list (as exhaustive as possible) of all the things
we can know or learn about God just from looking at these pictures of his creation. Have one person
write down the list of responses on a whiteboard or a sheet of paper.

LEADER’S NOTE: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handi-
work. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge,” (Ps. 19:1–2).

APPLY IT:
Write down one way you are going to apply what you now know about general and special revelation.
Think of something you can do this week to get to know God better.

Be specific:
What are you going to do?
When are you going to do it?
Is there someone who can keep you accountable?

LEADER’S NOTE: Whenever students make applications, challenge them to be specific. It’s one
thing to say, “I’m going to trust God more.” The truth is, our students won’t really know if they did
this, or if they grew in trust over the week. It’s another thing to say, “Every morning this week be-
fore I eat breakfast, I’m going to tell God that today is his and that I trust him, and I’m going to ask
him to give me the strength to replace worries with trust.” Challenge your students to answer the
questions under the “Be Specific” section. You can even have them pair up, share their applica-
tions, and ask for accountability from their partner.

THINK ABOUT IT:

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have
been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse,” (Rom.
1:20).

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