Preaching Doctrine Begins With Revelation
Doctrine Preaching Begins With Revelation
We are in a series of posts on how to preach doctrine in your church. In the last post we reflected a little bit about the awesomeness of God. In this post we will consider that preaching doctrine begins with revelation of God to us.
God Reveals Himself Through Nature
The Term for this is general, or natural revelation. Here is a definition of this aspect of God’s revelation:
General revelation, or natural revelation,[1] is a concept in Christian theologythat refers to God’s revelation as it is ‘made to all men everywhere’,[1] which is discovered through natural means, such as observations of nature (the physical universe), philosophy and reasoning. Christian theologians use the term to describe the knowledge of God purported to be plainly available to all of humanity. General revelation is usually understood to pertain to outward temporal events that are experienced within the world or the physical universe. The definition may be extended to include human conscience or providence (or providential history).
Preaching About The Revelation of God
The Bible says some amazing things about this revelation. Consider this statement of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 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 people are without excuse.
Imagine that for a moment. When I was in my teens, people were still being discovered in the wilds of South America that had never had any contact with white people. Missionary agencies would target those “unreached peoples”, and missionaries would begin to make contact. The amazing stories would come back that would affirm what Paul says here. Generally speaking, even people who had never heard about the God of creation believed in a being who controlled the creation. In most primitive cultures that belief was accompanied by fear. That God could cause a storm that would bring destruction and death. And so, with fear–not love–they brought some kind of sacrifice to the god that they couldn’t totally understand.
Doctrine preaching begins with revelation and our reflection on it.
What We Know
David reflected on this aspect of God’s revelation in the Old Testament. There he said this:
Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
>2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
>3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?[c]
5 You have made them[d] a little lower than the angels[e]
and crowned them[f] with glory and honor.
>6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their[g] feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Examples of This Truth Today
When the James Webb telescope was first deployed I realized something about God’s revelation of himself. He is much bigger, He is much more powerful than I had previously thought given the fact that we are now seeing 33.8 billion light years away. Think about that. A light year is how far light travels in a year. That’s 5.88 trillion miles. What kind of God could create such a vast world?
Preaching About General Revelation
In making a message about this revelation you could do well by just reading the various scripture passages that refer to it. Remember that preaching doctrine begins with revelation from God, and he has given us an idea of what he is like just by the nature around us. Mountains, seas, oceans, and space all call our attention to the greatness and power of God. In the next post we’ll look at preaching about the revelation of the Bible.
For further reflection, here is a sermon by Jeff Strite on Psalm 19 that reflects on the revelation of God.
