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Week Seventeen, Day Three

Acts 17: 16-34

Paul was brought before the Areopagus on Mars Hill, which is the same court that tried and sentenced Socrates centuries before. Now that the city was under Roman rule, their only real power was to decide who could and could not teach in the city. Paul was in no danger, but the Gospel was.

Paul began his defense by using their starting point rather than his own. He affirmed just how broadly religious they were, noting that they even had an altar to “the Unknown God.” Then, using an understanding they already held, Paul built his argument from there. Essentially, he said, he had come to tell them about this unknown God.

Having established a rapport with his listeners, Paul moves directly to the Hebrew of God by describing this “unknown” God as the one who created everything that is and, from a single ancestor, created all of them. This message, direct from Genesis, connects them all together as family rather than the “us vs. them” approach of so many witnesses. Paul famously describes this unknown God as “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.”

Paul is not describing a distant God who sends lightning and thunder from mountains in the sky, nor is he describing a deity who comes in disguise and moves among us. Rather, Paul is turning all religion on its head—God doesn't live with us; rather, we live IN God. Even today, if the Church were to take seriously Paul's description of God, we would need to rewrite our theology and reorder our worship.

The truth is that, by and large, Christians still live in a three-story universe with heaven above and hell below. What would today be like if you spent every moment as if Paul was right?

God is the One in whom we live.
God is the One in whom we move.
God is the One in whom we have our very being.

Wow.

Blessings,

Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice

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