Unknown God? Ha! :

Once Paul got safely to Athens, he sent the men who escorted him back to Berea telling them, “Tell Silas and Timothy to join me as quickly as they can.”

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was very troubled to see that the city was full of idols. So he spoke out in both the religious building as well as in the marketplace, every day with those who happened to be there.

The people there luuuuvvved to talk, talk, talk about new things and ideas.

Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?”

And others said, “I don’t know. Sounds foreign to me.”

But Paul was just telling them about Jesus and the resurrection.

They took him and brought him to a government meeting, where they said to him, “What are you talking about? You’re bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we’d like to know what they mean.”

So Paul stood up and said: “People of Athens! As I walked around your city and carefully looked at the things you worship, I found an altar with this writing: ‘to an unknown god.’ You’ve been worshipping this unknown God being clueless as to who He is. So let me introduce you to Him!

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made all the nations. They spread out over the earth as He intimately involved Himself in their lives. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from any one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’

“As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His children.’ So since we are God’s children, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone — an image made by human design and skill. In the past, God overlooked such cluelessness, but now He commands all people everywhere to change — repent.

“He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man that He has chosen. And He gave proof of this to everyone by raising this man from the dead.”

When they heard this, some of them sneered. But others said, “We want to hear more.” After that, Paul left. And some of the people followed Paul and believed.

Woohoo! I reckon that just turned that city upside down, too. Those people pride, pride, prided themselves in tolerating and coexisting with everyone’s beliefs. You could worship any ole idol, false god, or false religion around, as long as you didn’t diss anyone’s personal idol of choice. Sounds familiar, huh? The same things are still happening now. The false god of strength, of wealth, of beauty… health… womanhood… power… entertainment… blah, blah, blah. The list goes on and on of all the idols people bow down to in effort to have some “happy” life apart from the Real One and Only God.

So Paul wasn’t going to let them add God to their cesspool of beliefs as if God was just “one more new idea” or “one more option of something to believe.” No way! There are not many paths to God. There is ONE! Jesus.

And Paul wasn’t afraid to love them enough to tell them so.

That’s the kind of person I’m praying you all will grow up to be: the best and bravest Heaven-Seeing men and women this world has ever seen.