Coach: Ask your student to read out-loud the below title and the text in the two boxes. Then ask them to comment on how often they actually think one way versus the other way.
So, what’s all this got to do with knowing the unknown?
If you see God as not very involved in your search for truth about the unknown things of this world, then you will feel a responsibility to grasp and comprehend the infinite with a finite mind—and your quest will end in futility.
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On the other hand, if you see God as intimately and continually involved with revealing to you what you need to know through the testimony of His Holy Spirit in accordance with His word in the Bible, then you will experience the growing competence and wisdom that only He can provide you.
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An opportunity for spiritual training:
As you seek to know the unknown, but important, things in your life, you will see this quest as either a worldly exercise in logically reasoning about observable data from this physical world, or you will see this quest as a growing partnership of intimacy with God, where God continually reveals to you the things He wants you to know in accordance with His word in the Bible.
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It’s a common notion that people tend to view observable knowledge in light of what they already believe. It is natural for everyone to know something about the unknown but then use a form of “science” to confirm what they know, thinking this makes their knowledge valid (more credible).
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Coach: Have your student read the text on the left out-loud. Ask them to explain in their own words what it is saying. Then discuss the questions and Bible verses below with your student.
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Discuss the Following with Your Coach:
- As a Christian, how can you become more comfortable with the fact that God gives ideas to you that form the basis of your knowledge, as claimed in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5?...and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (ESV)
- Will you ask God for discernment to develop the confidence that revelation from His Holy Spirit is not strange but a normal, valid source of knowledge?
Discuss what each of the following verses have to say about this:- John 5:19So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (ESV)
- John 14:26But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (ESV)
- Romans 8: 11, 16, 26-27If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. ...The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (ESV)
- If you are seeking God and receive a thought that is consistent with what you know God says in the Bible, can you be comfortable it’s from Him?
