Acts 17:22-25, 28-31 (NASB) 22So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. 23"For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD ' Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24"The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; 25nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 28for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are His children.' 29"Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30"Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."
Paul walked into Athens between the statues and monuments to gods, between the buildings and banners celebrating religion. The problem is this religion was created and controlled by people. We may do the same thing, getting a bit of belief here and a bit of faith there, putting together a religion of sorts based on our memories of Christianity, the latest wisdom of the latest thing, and anything else that strikes us. We put them together and find some measure of happiness and comfort. The religion that we make for ourselves can help us some, but it does not give us God. It can give us comfort, but it does not confront us with the awesome reality of the living God.
But, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead. God is talking about Jesus, the One in whom the truth of God is found and focused. In Jesus there is a glimpse of God. In Jesus is found a transforming and liberating power. In Jesus is the opportunity to look beyond the frustration and flatness of life and to be put in touch with and brought into a real relationship with the living God.
The time of our ignorance God has overlooked, but now God commands us to repent, turning from all the noise about gods and religion and turning to the God we see in Jesus Christ. Repentance is a willingness to recognize where we have been wrong and the willingness to let God change us. Repentance presses us beyond the realm of ideas about God into the possibility of being confronted by God. Repentance means that God is not so much interested in our opinions as in our obedience.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope May 9, 1999
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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