I'm continuing my readings in the book of Acts. I read the passages that detail Paul's second missionary journey. Beginning in chapter 16, where we discover Luke joining the team, he records their journey to the European mainland...Greece. A vision by God of a Macedonian man asking them to come over and help them, leads to their leaving the Asia province (Turkey) and go over to Philippi. Here the first convert is a Jewish business lady and her household. What we learn is that the Gospel is received, and opposed. Paul is "forced" by opposition to keep heading south...perhaps it is also his design...towards the population centers of Athens and Corinth. He arrives at the Philosophical center of Greece at Athens. What impresses me is the simpicity of his comments.
Acts 17:24-25, 27-28, 30, 31 NLT
“He is the God who made the world and everything in it.
Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs.
He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.
His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.
For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”
There is a simplicity to the Gospel that transcends Philosophy and all human reasoning. God is everything and everywhere. He needs no defense, no temple to worship, and yet his purpose is to reach out to all mankind...because of his care for all made in his image. Yet in Him we need an honesty that keeps us from rationalizing our distance from him. Our sin has separated us from him, but He has made a way through His Son - Jesus' life, death and resurrection has made it possible for us to seek him and find Him. Make no mistake, there is a day in the future when all that seeking will come to an end.
It's not all that profound...except what God has done.
Peace
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