REVEALED: How do we know about God?

KNOWLEDGE
Student Guide

• 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 together 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 outside 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 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

Answer:
• Why does Cornelius want Peter to come visit him?

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 REVEALED: How do we know about God? KNOWLEDGE

•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 controver-
sial? 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.

Answer:
• Would 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?

Student Guide | 2 The Core | Deep Discipleship

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REVEALED: anddo
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 I read the Bible Bible regularly at
and read it. in church. home and take its
lessons to heart.

APPLY IT:
TH IS W EE K I W IL L.. .
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 that can keep you accountable?

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).

Student Guide | 3 The Core | Deep Discipleship

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