The Unknown God, Acts 17:16-34

This post concerns the unknown God that Athenians worshipped.

The Unknown God discusses an altar in Athens, Acts 17:23. “…I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”

In Athens, Paul proclaimed the gospel even in the marketplace. There, he encountered the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers. They invited him to discuss his message in the Areopagus, a local hotspot for philosophy, Acts 17:19. “And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching… that you are presenting?”

Learning something new comprised a daily activity, Acts 17:21. “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”

So, Paul began by telling of the altar “to the unknown god” and saying that this was the God he preached about saying that this God created everything and did not accept worship from idol temples.

Then, Paul went on to say that this God gives life and everything, sets the limits of our habitation, and provides a longing in the soul of man, Acts 17:27. “…they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he… actually not far from each one of us,”

Even their poets had mentioned that we live in God, Acts 17:27. “In him we live and move and have our being”

Then, Paul pointed out that they should not think of God as an idol, and commands everyone to repent of such worship, Acts 17:30-31. “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

The preaching of a resurrection caused almost everyone to turn away. But a few believed and followed Paul.

So, what did we learn?

1.Although Paul preached the gospel, the resurrection, and judgment many would not accept it.

2.A few believed and followed Paul.

This represents the message we should proclaim to the world today.

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