Day 4 — The God In Whom We Live
Opening prayer
Creator God, expose the things I trust in your place. Show me the truth about you, the world and myself, and lead me to the risen Jesus. Amen.
Headline
Christianity makes sense of our existence, dignity, moral longing and restless search for God.
Acts 17:22-31
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “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. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 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. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
Comment
Athens is full of ideas and full of gods. Paul is distressed by its idols, but he does not treat the Athenians with contempt. He observes their culture, quotes their poets and begins with an altar that reveals both spiritual hunger and uncertainty: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD’ (v. 23). He then announces that the God they do not know has made himself known.
Paul offers more than another item for their spiritual marketplace. ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth’ (v. 24). He cannot be contained in a shrine or sustained by human service. He needs nothing from us; rather, ‘he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else’ (v. 25). Our existence is received, moment by moment, from a Creator who is independent of creation.
That makes coherent sense of why there is something rather than nothing and why the universe displays an intricate order that human minds can investigate. Science explores the regular patterns and processes within creation; belief in a Creator addresses why an intelligible world exists at all. Christians and non-Christians can examine the same world and reach different conclusions, reminding us again that evidence is viewed through prior assumptions. Christianity does not use God merely to plug gaps in knowledge. It sees every discovery as an exploration of a reality that continually depends upon him.
Paul’s account also gives human beings both dignity and humility. God made the nations, and his purpose was that people ‘would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him’ (v. 27). Every person matters because we owe our life to the one God. No race, culture, intellect or achievement makes one group inherently superior. Yet none of us is self-made or self-sufficient.
Christianity makes sense of both sides of the human condition. We are capable of courage, creativity and sacrificial love, yet also cruelty, deception and self-centredness. The Bible explains this tension: we are made for God and possess genuine dignity, but we have turned from him and become disordered. The world contains real beauty because it is creation, and real anguish because it is fallen.
God is transcendent, but not remote. Paul says, ‘he is not far from any one of us’ (v. 27) and quotes, ‘For in him we live and move and have our being’ (v. 28). We do not have to make God present. Every breath already bears witness to our dependence upon him. Our longing for God is possible because God has first drawn near and placed us within his world.
Paul’s speech ends not in speculation but in summons. God calls all people to repent and has appointed a day of just judgement through Jesus, giving assurance by raising him from the dead. Evidence is not merely information to store; truth asks for a response. That helps explain why we sometimes demand more proof from Christianity than from everyday life: this conclusion may require us to change. The resurrection joins the week’s arguments together: the Creator has acted in history, revealed the judge and offered a new beginning.
Why does God want me to hear this today? Perhaps because I have treated God as distant, reduced him to something manageable, or expected a created gift to carry my life. Paul announces the God who gives me every breath and calls me to turn towards him. Faith begins as trust based on what I know, like any real relationship, and grows as I come to know the one I trust. Christianity does more than explain the world from a distance; it locates me within God’s world and brings me face to face with the risen Jesus.
Reflect
- What truths about God, humanity and the world does Paul draw out in this speech?
- Which good things am I most tempted to treat as ultimate things?
- Where does the Christian story make particularly good sense of my experience of the world?
Closing prayer
Creator and Judge, you give me life and breath and everything else. Turn me from false gods, awaken my desire to know you and teach me to find my life in the risen Jesus. Amen.
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