God’s purpose is for the nations to seek after him and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. “For in him we live and move and exist… We are his offspring…” Reach out to the God who is closer to us than we know…
16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. 17 He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.
18 He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods.”
19 Then they took him to the high council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said. 20 “You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” 21 (It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)
22 So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, 23 for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.
24 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, 25 and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. 26 From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.
27 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.
30 “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. 31 For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.” 33 That ended Paul’s discussion with them, 34 but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the council, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Acts 17:16-34 NLT
God overlooked our ignorance in earlier times. In other parts of the new testament, this is referred to as God’s forbearance. He allowed for a lot of beliefs and a lot of behaviour over centuries and centuries. In Jesus, things are different. In Jesus, not only does God call people to turn back toward him in light of a future day of reckoning, he extends this call to the people outside of Israel, the children of God.
In this new revelation, the gods of the rest of the world, including the unknown gods who represent us searching for truth and meaning, help us see that we are reaching out for the divine. God wants to reveal himself to us in our searching. Jesus is that revelation of God in the flesh for us.
Paul’s description of Jesus responds to the longing of the human heart: “He is the God who made the world and everything in it… he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.” This is our Lord Jesus.
“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and exist… We are his offspring…” God is closer to us than we know and we can reach out to him.
I often focus on the interest and response of the Athenians when I read this passage, but today I focus on the description of Jesus. Today I focus on the description of our heart’s longing. And as we are feeling our way toward God to find him, he is right there. He is close at hand. He doesn’t want any outreached hand to fail to take hold of faith and the promise of Jesus.
In him we live and move and exist. Our essence of life is found in the God who made us as his offspring to have unity and community with him…
Amen.
Marc Kinna
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