Youth Sunday School: God's revelation (Nov. 25)

This week Jake taught the youth Sunday school class and the topic was Revelation. Not the book, but the word - because 'revelation' means 'reveal!' Haha alright that was pretty obvious, but we don't always think about the various ways that God reveals himself to people.

Here's a recap of the lesson and some talking points for parents and teens:

• God initiates a relationship with people by making himself known
• He does this through both general revelation (available to all people) and special revelation (available to people who are searching)
• General revelation is a springboard for curiosity and special revelation satisfies that curiosity as people come to know God and enter into relationship with Him

Types of general revelation:

• Creation - reflects God's creativity, wonder, majesty, etc. We see creation and can make two choices - one is that there is something or someone out there who is responsible (leaving people to search for source - this is why religion is found all over the world) and the second is that there is nobody out there who is responsible
• Common grace - all people are shown grace in the form of food, water, necessities... God allows even those who hate him to flourish in areas such as science... God gives these things to everyone, not just the people who know him - result is that world is much better place
• Conscience - God has imprinted his morality on human hearts - when people ignore their conscience others object - legal systems can reflect this!

Types of special revelation:

• Jesus revealed God's character as he became man and ministered on earth - set example for all to follow
• The Bible is the greatest special revelation because it is God inspired and everything we need for faith is in it

The group had two activities in this lesson:

• Brainstorm how different the world would be if common grace and conscience were only available to those who follow God
• Make a list of all the things we know about God's character that we wouldn't know without special revelation

The biggest source I used for this lesson was Doctrine by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears - I highly recommend it if you want more information on Christian theology! It's a relatively easy read considering the density of some of the doctrines of our faith, and there are also discussion questions in the book - perfect for individual use or a group study.