Known or Unknown

 DEVOTION

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

KNOWN OR UNKNOWN

Acts 17:22-23

22 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. 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. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

NIV

We should move on to Paul’s proclamation of who this unknown God they had an altar to, however, the fact that they even worshipped, if that is what they did, a god they had no idea of his identity is strange in itself. We would think that people today would never worship something or someone they had no idea of its identity. People know the reality of their idols, as we have already thought about, such as money, sports teams or individual sports stars or famous entertainers, and perhaps even many of the materialistic things of this world. They would not buy them, or rather to use the vernacular of the times, they would not invest their time or money in these idols unless they were completely versed in both the identity and the function they play out in their lives. Yet, at the same time, we believe there are many people who make statements about God and his role in the world without actually knowing anything about him or his true identity. To them, he is, in all practical sense, unknown to them. We think there might even be believers, who have confessed their sins, repented and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, who have remained ignorant of the truth of the Almighty God and all he has to offer as well as commands in our lives. That is they have remained as they were when they began their journey with Jesus. They lack the knowledge of who God actually is and what he desires in their lives. In a sense, they are worshipping an unknown God. That might sound a little critical, or judgmental, however, we have known believers that are like that. It seems a little strange in that when we purchase something new that comes with either instruction or a user’s manual, we pour over it so that we are completely conversant with how it functions, or we might even do all our research on the item before deciding to invest in, or rather buy it. Our material goods are not unknown to us, yet we might not spend quite as much time or effort to research all we can about the living God whom we have declared to believe in. The fact is we do have the most in-depth instruction and user’s manual concerning God the Father, God the Son and God, the Holy Spirit, and it is more than just knowing the names of God, or that he is the God who created all that is created. We can spend our entire lives pouring through this instruction book, the bible, and never fully grasp all there is to know about him, yet that is not only our task, it is our responsibility to encompass that which we discover into the fabric of our lives. At least the Athenians wanted to know about what Paul was teaching, and it seems were ready to make the changes in their lives after learning about Jesus and his act of compassion for them, and that after that act was completed, the Father resurrected him and exalted his name above all other names, which included all the false gods, their idols. This must be our way of life, to learn all we can about our Lord and Savior, and our God, as Thomas said after seeing the resurrected Jesus for himself, calling him, “My Lord and my God”. Let us turn our undivided attention to knowing our Lord and our God.