To the unknown God

I have always found Paul's address to the Greek philosophers in Athens in Acts 17 to be very interesting. I believe that what Paul has to say explains so much of the human condition. Paul explains that all men have a knowledge of God from creation and their nature as human beings who are his offspring. We know that we are to seek this God. We have a desire to find this unknown God. We need him to be the center of our reality. That doesn't mean can't fight, deny, and resist this knowledge. But even when we do, we can't totally escape this reality. We know we need to find God but we sense that we can't know him. This creates a profound void in our lives.

We try to fill this void in different ways, through religion, philosophy, success, money, pleasure, etc. Like the people in Athens we create all sorts of God substitutes to fill the void. But none of it works. If you understand this problem of the void, it will help understand so much of the craziness of the human condition.

What answer doe Paul give to this void we have for the unknown God? It is the man God has sent. There are endless competing ideas of truth today just like there was in Athens. How doe we know that Jesus Christ is the true way? Paul gives the answer: God raised Christ from the dead. This is still just as true today We can know the truth and have the void filled because Christ is risen. That separates him from all the world's philosophies and religions. If Christ is risen what does Paul say our response should be? God calls all men everywhere to turn from their God substitutes and to repent.