The Known Unknown

Acts 17.22-31

At Speakers' Corner in Athens Paul takes on the debaters. Talking to a Jewish audience he would describe how the Church of Christ is the new transformed Israel. Speaking to Greek people, who pride themselves on being open-minded, scientific seekers after truth, he tries a different pitch.

He's come to tell them about the unknown god whom they suspect might be out there, within and beyond the framework of existence, what Donald Rumsfeld called 'the unknown Known' or 'the known Unknown'. (That's an example of choosing the wrong pitch for your audience.)

It's comforting, at a time when we cannot go into them, to remember that this God, 'who made the cosmos and everything in it, …does not live in shrines made by human hands.'

Despite our many achievements, which have only multiplied since Paul's time, we still find ourselves 'groping' in the darkness for a God who is actually 'not far from each one of us', wherever we are, if we could but see him, 'for in him we live and move and have our being.'

God has been patient with us, says Paul, and has 'overlooked' our 'ignorance'. But now God asks us all to recognise that he's with us in Jesus, 'the [righteous] man whom he has appointed' and whom he raised from the dead.

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Methodist Bishop

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