An Unknown God
“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.“ Acts 17:22-23
Many people are spiritual but don’t know the true and living God of the Bible. That’s how it was in Paul’s day too. The Lord led him to the cultural hub of Athens where he found those in power to be searching for answers. Acts 17:21 adds this parenthetical insight, “(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)”
Paul acknowledged their spirituality and addressed their ignorance. We’re called to do the same thing today, “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). We are to testify, as Paul did, to our family and friends, and to everyone God gives us the opportunity to influence, that the God they don’t know, is the God you can know, the creator and sustainer of the universe, “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God” (1 Timothy 1:17).
Most people make their way through life today never knowing personally the great and awesome creator of the universe. They don’t know that he wants to be known to us, and he wants us to know him and that He desires fellowship with us. They’ve never heard the insanely great news (the gospel) that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
It is our job to tell them, so that they might go from worshipping an unknown God to knowing Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.
Do you have friends or family who are spiritual, but do not know the true and living God? Are you prepared to share with them?
Having begun as a guest speaker in 2005, Dan was appointed Interim Pastor in 2008 and has been serving Maple Root Baptist ever since. As a small group leader and Chaplin for the Connecticut Tigers, Dan has a heart for the lost and the God that saves them.