I’m blessed to belong to a church that takes the Bible seriously–and that teaches its people how to correctly divide the Word of truth.
I’m taking Systematic Theology I this year and am loving it.
One thing I’m not necessarily loving is how busy I’ve been between Systematic Theology, teaching Sunday School, Bible study, and working.
Which is why, after spending way too much time looking up nail art online (as opposed to writing a blog post), I’m going to cheat on blogging by posting an excerpt from my first Systematic Theology paper (due today) on Bibliology.
God is not silent.
He does not lurk in dark corners, such that no one will see him. Instead, He is at work revealing Himself to all men (Ps 98:2, Rom 1:19).
He reveals Himself through a variety of means, including through creation (Ps 19:1, Rom 1:20), through human conscience (Rom 2:15), through the prophets (Heb 1:1), through Jesus Christ (Heb 1:2), and through the words of Scripture (2 Pet 1:20-21).
Generally, the ways through which God reveals Himself are divided into two categories: general revelation, which is given to all indiscriminately, and special revelation, which is given to specific individuals.
General revelation encompasses what can be known of God from creation, from human conscience, and through reasoning.
Special revelation encompasses what God reveals of Himself through the words of Scripture or of prophecy.
Certain things are true of all revelation, both general and specific.
First, all revelation is available because God expressly purposed to reveal it (Matt 11:25-27). No revelation is accidental or outside God’s will.
Second, because revelation is God Himself revealing Himself and because God is completely true and incapable of lying (Num 23:9, Tit 1:2), all revelation is completely true.
Third, because God is unchanging (Jam 1:17, Mal 3:6, Ps 102:27, Num 23:9) and his word is true, revelation cannot contradict itself. If God were changeable, it would be possible for revelation to be true at a certain point in time and not true at another; but since God is unchanging, all revealed truth must be the same at all times.
Finally, while all revelation is purposeful, is true, and is non-contradictory, a final characteristic of all revelation is that it can be suppressed or misinterpreted by unbelieving hearts (Rom 1:18, 2 Cor 3:14-15, I Tim 4:1-2).
How do you like my dry, academic writing? Our assignment was to summarize what we believed about revelation (with Scriptural support) in one and a half double spaced pages.
Yeah. This is one-third of what I wrote and what I wrote only scratched the surface.
But I suppose it’s a start.