Acts 17:22-31 (NRSV)
Read Acts 17:22-31 on biblegateway.com
Verse 22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. Verse 23For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. Verse 24The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, Verse 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Verse 26From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, Verse 27so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him-though indeed he is not far from each one of us. Verse 28For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.' Verse 29Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. Verse 30While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, Verse 31because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
Devotion
As we continue to celebrate Eastertide, the fifty days after Jesus Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven, it is helpful to remind ourselves: not everyone believes in the one true God—so many skeptics, so many who choose a different way of understanding the mysteries of faith.
In our reading from Acts, the Apostle Paul confronts those intellectual Greeks who choose to play it safe, by having an altar dedicated to any unknown God. How convenient of us humans to have God as a construct of our creation! Paul offers a different perspective reaching beyond our human limits: “The God who made the world and everything in it… does not live in shrines made by human hands.”
The God we worship, our loving God who gave us Jesus Christ, is beyond our limited understanding. As Christians we have faith that through our God of all creation we “live and move and have our being.”
Prayer
Gracious, loving, all expansive God, we humbly seek you, God of the universe. Help us to know you as our God. In your intimate love, know each of us. Amen.
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