To An Unknown God

Many may know the story of the Unknown God...

In Acts 17 it talks about Paul visiting Athens. He is completely shocked by all of the idols that the people of Athens had. Because this upset him so much he started preaching the stories of Jesus and reasoning with the people of Athens. Now the people of Athens were very up to date on all the trends at the time (theological ideas included) I would say they were the Orange County of the ancient world.

The idea that was most trendy at the time was Epicureanism, the idea, simply, that the goal of life was to obtain happiness and pain and pleasure are associated with good and evil. Those people who followed Epicurus' ideas were those in which Paul was trying to reason with. Wanting to keep up with the latest trends, they were curious about what Paul had to say, but did not understand his way of teaching.

In Athens there were twelve main gods and an uncountable number of smaller gods. There was also an entire temple and altar dedicated to Agnostos Theos, an unknown god. They were so worried about offending or forgetting a god they covered all their bases by having an altar to an unknown god. To help the people understand his God and the story of Jesus, Paul used this "unknown god" as a way to relate. He claimed to them that he knew this unknown god, "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The 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, nor is he served by human hands" He goes on to say how God is not dependent on us, but we are dependent on Him.

This is all great and full of rich history, but what can we take out of this story of Agnostos Theos? Well, Paul tried to reason and preach the gospel in their synagogues the way that he thought was best and they did not understand. He then used something, an object common and familiar in their culture to explain his God to them. I personally think this was wonderfully creative, and it worked.

There is so much we can learn from this story! When we tell people about the story of Christ, and share our love for the Lord it is important to talk in a way that they will understand. This is something Christians often times forget. If we start sharing the gospel with someone using what are commonly known as church-words like "baptized in the spirit", "Presence of God", and "Holy fire" they will be as lost as the Athenians were when Paul first started preaching. We must bring the stories of God to them in a way that they understand, using words and cultural familiarities that they can relate to.

So I encourage you to remove the church language out of your daily vocabulary, especially when you are talking with those who may not be regular church attenders, and non-Christians. You just might find that it is easier to talk to them and relate to them if you do this.

I also encourage you to read the story yourself and see what you think about this story! Acts 17:16-34