Taking Your Deities Seriously
23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for
” ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
” ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
If you break down what Paul is saying into little bits, it makes too much sense.
He’s in Athens, where all kinds of people like to coffee shop all day long and just talk. There is some religious stuff around the city and for a moment, Paul has their attention on the topic of religion.
“Guys, come on. The god who made heaven and earth, all of this — do you really think that He is happy when you make a thing out of gold and pray to it? Do you seriously, just slow down and think this out, seriously think that the creator of strawberries and mountains would be pleased when you go get drunk with a temple prostitute and do all kinds of those things?”
We’re talking about deities here. The real deal.
If any of these gods are real, they are on a completely different level than we are. Like when I see an action movie and the hero falls from the hand of some 50-foot tall monster and rolls on the ground. I can’t even stand up in my friend’s basement without banging my head and being sore for 3 days! Those guys are on a whole different level!
Our only hope is for them to come to us. If we give a deity the credit that is due to them as a deity, we also have to admit how completely below and powerless we are as people.
But for God, the One True God, to reach out to us?! For Him to call us His own offspring!? What could be more profound than God Himself deciding and acting to make us His very children‽
It is not our imagination that brought us close to Him with fancy ways of worship. It is His own desire and will for us (Isaiah 9:7) by which He has brought us into His family by His grace.
And so He draws near to us and we draw near to Him and in that relationship, He makes Himself known, just like He’s done throughout the scriptures for centuries.
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