Unlikely Leaders

To The Unknown God

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you.” With all their general knowledge, they were ignorant of the God who created the universe. Yet some were longing for greater light. ULe 89.1

With his hand outstretched toward the temple crowded with idols, Paul exposed the errors of the Athenians’ religion. His hearers were astonished. He showed that he was familiar with their art, their literature, and their religion. Pointing to their statues and idols, he declared that God could not be compared to these graven images. These images had no life, moving only when human hands moved them, and those who worshiped them were superior in every way to the things they worshiped. ULe 89.2

Paul drew the minds of his hearers to the Deity whom they had called the “Unknown God.” This Being needed nothing from human efforts to add to His power and glory. ULe 89.3

The people were carried away with admiration for Paul’s logical presentation of the attributes of the true God. Eloquently the apostle declared: “God who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.” ULe 89.4

In that age when human rights were often unrecognized, Paul proclaimed that God “made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth.” All are equal, and every human being owes supreme allegiance to the Creator. Then the apostle showed how, through all God’s dealings with humanity, His purpose of grace and mercy runs like a thread of gold. He “determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” ULe 89.5

With words borrowed from one of their own poets he pictured God as a Father, whose children they were. “‘In Him we live and move and have our being,’” he declared; “as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.” ULe 89.6