Spend time in prayer and silence with God, asking Him to meet with you and speak to you.
Bible Reading
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the Good News about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.” Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything, because He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being.
– Acts 17:16-20, 22-28a
Devotion
In Athens, Paul has the opportunity to address the intellectual elite and the philosophers of the day. Paul notices how religious (spiritual) the people of Athens are. He starts there and proclaims to them the God of creation. Some of those that heard Paul talk became believers.
The Big Question
This account is very relevant for our culture today. We live in a post-Christian or post-truth culture. Like in Athens, the people in our culture are very spiritual. Unfortunately, their devotion is to gods that cannot save. How can you engage your post-truth culture with the truth of Jesus Christ? Go – Who is in your top three?
Conclude your time in prayer and silence, reflecting on what God revealed to you today.