Original Revelation is the theory that humanity started with a clear revelation of God and truth. Sin means that this became increasingly fragmented and disrupted. It’s central to the form of apologetics I’m most aligned to, presuppositional apologetics and the thinking of my favourite missiologist, JH Bavinck. You’ll also find it showing up in the work of leading contemporary theologians such as Daniel Strange.
Whether or not you accept original revelation in its pure form, I think that at a practical level, you will accept that we can observe this fragmentation and distortion, whether into other relgions through interaction with Christianity, into western culture through Christendom’s influence or into individuals through contact with church, Sunday school or portrayals in popular culture. The result is that in conversations we will often encounter examples of these fragments: half a Bible story sort of remembered, Bible characters named if little is known of them, a quotable saying and maybe some ethical values that people try to live by.
That’s why, whether it is in evangelism, discipleship or pastoral care and counselling that I believe a key responsibility we have is to help people put those fragments back together, to lose the distortion and to be captivated by the beautiful image and held by the greatest story ever told.
For those reasons, I would encourage you to use narrative in one to one work and preaching. Take time to pick up on those names, half stories and quotes. Pu them back into context and tell the story. Similarly, I think it is a good reason for systematic expository preaching. It’s an argument against topical and textual preaching because the risk is hat we simply end up reapplying the distortion. The result is that we re-administer the sharp fragment into someone’s heart and inflict wounds that hurt and harm but do not help. This is not the same as when God’s word cuts to the heart.
How can you help people in your context put the fragments back into place and discover the whole undistorted picture?
Faithroots 