The unknown God revealed

Acts 17

Paul Timothy and Silas travel to Thessalonica and preach and teach about Jesus and many people believe but opposition soon lands some new converts, Jason and friends in Jail. They post bond and that night the team is sent to Berea.

“11 Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. 12 As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.”

Soon the rabble rousers in Thessalonica came and stirred up trouble. Paul was sent to Athens, Timothy and Silas stayed on in Berea.

Athens wasn’t the next town over. It was 250 miles away, a 3 day sea journey or 12 day land journey.

While there he was asked to tell his story. He said this, it’s long but I’m going to post the entire message,

“Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 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. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[a] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[b]

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”’

Today We don’t have idols we worship. Mostly We have ideas and philosophies.

Here is what I need to know. Gods plan to save all the people on planet earth is Jesus. Jesus’ death paid the cost of my sin, the fact that he rose from the dead and then went from here to heaven gives me hope of a life beyond death. All of my mistakes are covered by that one act. Those things that I’m too ashamed to even mention, all of that, of those things. All covered and forgiven. And that forgiveness is available to all people.