Monday, January 17: Acts 17- Religious or a Christ-follower

 

Listening to Paul, I am constantly amazed by his ability to take advantage of every open door to proclaim the truth of Jesus. Whether risking riots in Thessalonica or deep thinkers in Berea or creating a speech about an unknown god in Athens, Paul presses Jesus as often and as cleverly as he possibly can. His ability to read people and engage people is uncanny, as are his powers of observation.

Standing in Athens, Paul makes a keen observation. He differentiates between being religious and knowing God.  Go back and reread verse 22-23. Many people to this day are religious. They follow some religious (or in today’s parlance ‘spiritual’) system. They may be adherents of a major world religion or some concoction of established religion(s) + a mixture of their own thinking. Bookstores have shelves lined with texts on spiritual things!

What Paul notes is that people can be highly religious/spiritual and yet not know God. There is a profound truth in this observation.  Not all religious/spiritual roads lead to God, the one true God, that is. Paul understood that and so he argued cleverly for belief in Jesus and the need to repent. Paul gave them just enough information that those truly interested would want more and those not sure would think and ponder what he said….

All religious/spiritual roads do not lead to God.  Only faith in Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead, leads to knowing the creator God of the universe.

There is much to chew on in this thought… happy chewing.

O, Jesus, give faith to believe, that in believing in You we might know the one true and only God and in Him receive salvation, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life forever more. Amen.