Unknown God - Acts 17:21-25

Once on Mars’ hill, the monument to the pagan God of War, Paul begins to teach those gathered about Jesus Christ, the true God of Peace. We can see a huge difference between how Paul would preach to the native Jews in their synagogues, but here he is speaking to the gentiles who not only didn’t have a Jewish background but who were also adherents to paganism. One point that the IM makes is that Paul changed the content of his message for his audience, but not the meaning of it. He could not use scripture to illustrate Jesus as the Messiah to this group because they didn’t have the scriptures and they didn’t know who the Messiah was or why he was even important, so Paul didn’t even bring it up.

There is an excellent book called “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and Paul’s speech here is a perfect example of why these concepts are important. The Jews viewed pagan gentiles as the lowest on earth, and even though Christianity was open to them, it would have been in keeping to endeavor to teach the gospel to the gentiles by telling them how bad they are. No one would listen to that message, “I have the truth and you don’t and previously I thought you were the scum of the earth, but my God has told me to be nice to you now,” no one is interesting in that.
One of the concepts in “How to Win Friends and Influence People” is how to bring up a conversation that might be unpleasant in a way that people will be open and thankful to hear it. The basic concept is to go “positive, negative, positive,” meaning that you begin your conversation by talking about something positive they are doing, then you transition on what you want to address, then you come out of it by focusing on something positive again. Paul could have started out his sermon by stating that his audience was a bunch of heathens and worshipped the wrong god and that they were going to have severe consequences if they didn’t listen to him and convert, but he doesn’t.
Paul tells them, “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.” This doesn’t sound like a compliment to me but it was a different time and the IM says that this phrase meant “they were ‘most religious; i.e., careful in divine things.” It sounds accusatory to us, but it was akin to him saying that they were devout in their belief and worship of their god. That is an excellent way to start out a conversation about who has the right god, with a “hey you guys are doing a great job with what you have, I’m just going to expand on it just a little bit.”
He says that he was able to deduce that they were a highly religious people not because of what they told him but because of what he observed, “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.” Again, this does not sound like flattery to me, but the IM says, “The altar built by the Athenians to the ‘unknown god’ is referred to in other historical sources as an altar to the unknowable god or to all gods not specifically known by name. The Athenians had apparently built this altar to avoid offending or neglecting some unknown deity.” This demonstrated that the Athenians were not only interested in what they knew, but that they knew that their knowledge had limits.
This must have been music to Paul’s ears, because they apparently want to worship the important gods that they don’t know about and here he is with information about an important God they don’t know about. And he tells them just that, “whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” He says, “you’re already worshipping him, let me introduce you.” He tells them that the God he presents is the creator of all things, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” It doesn’t specifically say what exactly the people believed about their gods but we can make a couple of deductions here based on these teachings.
I assume that the people believed that their “temples” were the only places where they could commune with their gods. Paul is telling them that his God can be worshipped anywhere because he created the whole earth. It seems contrary to our having temples today but it seems like the difference in the messages is that the people believe that their gods are confined to working in that one sacred place, but Paul is saying that God is not confined or beholden to any place or object and can be worshipped and commune easily and freely as he chooses. The IM quotes Elder Bruce R. McConkie as teaching, “the great Creator, by whom all things are, dwelleth not in temples made by the hands of his creatures; but he is worshiped by them in his temples, which holy houses he visits occasionally, and in which sacred spots his Spirit may always be found by the faithful.”
This perspective is really liberating to those who are faithful devotees to their gods. If someone is really dedicated enough to their god to take time out of their daily schedule to adhere to some prescribed behavior or worship, then the proximity of the worship point would be important to their lifestyle. If they believe that in order to worship their god, they must go to this certain place regularly and frequently then they might be inclined to buy a house in that area, to spend a lot of time traveling, etc. But then to find out that the god can be worshipped in your heart in other places is freeing.
As Paul expounds on his statement, there is a phrase that I think is very telling about the beliefs at the time. He says that God “neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.” It seems that one of the beliefs at the time might have been that the gods could only interact with man if they were given the ability to do so by idols or figures or something like that. Combined, these two beliefs that I’m assuming they had, produced a god that was physically limited to a specific place for communion and that had no power except that which was given to them by humans.
The statement I just made sounds crazy and thinking about it, I don’t know if that’s actually what they thought but either way, those beliefs are out there, even in subtly, and they are extremely limiting. For instance, some might believe that God will only answer our prayers in the church or temple, and Paul’s statement sets us straight on that. The biggest actual difference between the two beliefs is that God can’t answer outside of his area or that God won’t answer outside of his area. Even though the difference is God’s intentions, the limiting power that both of these perspectives is the same, that God is bound by arbitrary rules, when in fact, Paul is saying that God can and will be available everywhere.
The second belief that I talked about ranges from “God can not interact with me until I provide a physical way for him to do so, such as an idol or something,” to “God will only interact with me if I make some grand gesture to show him that I am interested.” They both speak to the same belief, and the message is the same, God is bound in his ability to communicate with his people. But Paul says that God can and will interact with his people even when they are imperfect or unworthy. These words by Paul take the people’s perspective on God from him as a powerless, restricted being to an all powerful and omnipresent deity. This would be freeing for the people who believe and set them up to learn more about the true nature of our creator.