Day 1 — The Starting Point: Who Jesus Is, and What He Has Done

Today’s Passage: Acts 17:22-31

Paul spent a few days in Athens waiting for two friends, and he used the time to walk the streets. He walked through a city crowded with gods. Statues stood at the intersections and shrines filled the blocks between them. The men who governed Athens made a habit of debating new arguments. Paul arrived with a different set of convictions, and he made no attempt to blend in. Some men dismissed him as a babbler. Others wanted a proper hearing, so they walked him up to the Areopagus council and asked him to account for himself. The response he gave them runs ten verses. The God who made everything is not far from any one of us, and He does not intend to stay unknown.

Acts 17:22-23 (BSB)

²² Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.

Paul starts with physical evidence. He had walked the streets. He had examined their objects of worship, stopping to look at the details instead of glancing on his way past.

Among the altars, he found one with no name on it. The builders erected it to cover their bases, in case a god existed whom they had failed to honor. A visiting speaker could mock an altar like that. Paul uses it to build his case. You left a gap, he tells them, because you suspected you missed Someone. I have come to give you His name. He read their city closely before he spoke a word about it, showing them a basic courtesy.

Acts 17:24-25 (BSB)

²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. ²⁵ Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

Paul stands in the shadow of the Parthenon, a massive stone structure built to house a goddess. He declares that the God he represents transcends buildings. The Creator who made the world stands outside of it. He cannot be stored inside a piece of it, so He does not live in temples.

Paul reverses the entire flow of religion. Athenian worship moved upward. Worshippers carried oil, grain, and animals to gods who needed feeding and appeasing. Paul states his God requires no service from human hands. A human being has nothing to carry up a hill that God needs. The current runs the other direction, down to humanity. God Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. Every breath drawn in that room came from Him, including the breaths of the men preparing to laugh at the claim.

Acts 17:26-27 (BSB)

²⁶ From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.

The Athenians claimed they sprang directly from their own soil, a myth that made every outsider inferior by birth. Paul tells them every nation came from one man. That historical fact levels the ground and leaves no room for a superior race.

Behind human history stands a purpose: that people would look for God. Paul uses a word for reaching out that describes a man feeling his way across a dark room with both hands, hoping to find a wall. He speaks this to men who spent their lives reaching out and finding cold stone. Then he delivers a warm truth to an audience of skeptics. God is not far from each one of us. He keeps the circle wide, including the men who have not yet figured it out.

Acts 17:28-29 (BSB)

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, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.

Paul quotes their own poets, reciting two lines his hearers memorized as children. He read their literature, and he uses their own authors to establish his point. He secures his argument with a line they already accept.

If we are God’s offspring, look at the logical conclusion. Parents give birth to living children; they do not carve them out of gold. A sculptor has never created a living organism with a chisel. Whatever God is, He did not emerge from a workshop. The Athenians built beautiful statues and got the order of creation backward. Paul points out the error using their own poem.

Acts 17:30-31 (BSB)

³⁰ Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now 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.”

The speech shifts from description to a summons. God commands all people everywhere to repent.

Church usage has worn the word repent smooth. It means a change of mind thorough enough that you walk a different direction. It involves taking action, rather than sitting in a mood or feeling guilty. God overlooked ignorance in earlier times, Paul says, and that era has ended because a messenger has arrived with the truth.

Paul announces an appointed day, and a world judged with justice by a Man God chose. He states the fact and moves on, without using it to frighten the crowd.

His evidence comes last. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead. Paul points to an event in history. He claims this happened to a specific man in a specific place, recently enough that people sitting in the room could investigate it. A claim like that demands a verdict, and Paul wants them to examine the evidence.

The speech ends there. Some sneered, some promised to listen another time, and a few believed him. Paul left the room without forcing a decision.

Read these ten verses once more today. Read them slowly, out loud if you can. Paul builds a case step by step. Where he makes a claim you need to investigate before you accept it, write it down in your own words instead of making a final decision about it right now.