Missionary Renegade: The Daily Guide/Daily Devotion from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Daily Guide/Daily Devotion from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 18 August 2015 - “In God”

Daily Scripture: Acts 17:22-34
Acts 17 said Paul’s associates sent him to Athens for his own safety. As he visited the Greek capital, he was sad to find it filled with temples to many pagan gods. Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, who met on Mars Hill, either invited or compelled him to speak to them. Acts summarized his sermon in these words:
22 Sha’ul stood up in the Council meeting and said, “Men of Athens: I see how very religious you are in every way! 23 For as I was walking around, looking at your shrines, I even found an altar which had been inscribed, ‘To An Unknown God.’ So, the one whom you are already worshipping in ignorance — this is the one I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the universe and everything in it, and who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in man-made temples; 25 nor is he served by human hands, as if he lacked something; since it is he himself who gives life and breath and everything to everyone.
26 “From one man he made every nation living on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the limits of their territories and the periods when they would flourish. 27 God did this so that people would look for him and perhaps reach out and find him although in fact, he is not far from each one of us, 28 ‘for in him we live and move and exist.’ Indeed, as some of the poets among you have said, ‘We are actually his children.’ 29 So, since we are children of God, we shouldn’t suppose that God’s essence resembles gold, silver or stone shaped by human technique and imagination.
30 “In the past, God overlooked such ignorance; but now he is commanding all people everywhere to turn to him from their sins. 31 For he has set a Day when he will judge the inhabited world, and do it justly, by means of a man whom he has designated. And he has given public proof of it by resurrecting this man from the dead.”
32 At the mention of a resurrection of dead people, some began to scoff; while others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 So Sha’ul left the meeting. 34 But some men stayed with him and came to trust, including the High Council member Dionysius; there was also a woman named Damaris; and others came to trust along with them.
Reflection Questions:
Christians don’t just believe ideas—we believe in someone. To philosophers in Athens, the apostle Paul laid out the kind of God in which he (and Christians after him) believed. In verse 28, he even quoted a Cretan philosopher named Epimenides and the Stoic poet Aratus. The Apostles’ Creed, like Paul, made it plain that Christians trust in a personal, life-giving, loving God, not just a vague, abstract force.

In Vanishing Grace, Phillip Yancey said, “It makes a huge difference whether I treat a nonbeliever as someone who is wrong rather than as someone who is on the way but lost.” Paul did not condemn his audience for practicing idolatry, but commended their spiritual search, especially their devotion to an “unknown God.” How did Paul’s approach echo the way Jesus lived out God’s heart (cf. John 3:16-17)? How can you share your faith with non-religious and nominally religious people without condemning them?
Few in today’s first-world cultures hold the specific idea Paul challenged in the Athenians: “we have no need to imagine that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought.” In what ways, however, can we idolize “human skill and thought” in place of God? Do you find inner resonance when Paul said, “God isn’t far away from any of us,” or do you struggle to believe that is true?

Today’s Prayer:
Lord God, I believe in and trust you as a personal being who loves me and my world. Help me live and act in ways that show that your love has touched my life. Amen.
Insights from Brandon Gregory

Brandon Gregory is a volunteer for the worship and missions teams at Church of the Resurrection. He helps lead worship at the Vibe, West, and Downtown services, and is involved with the Malawi missions team at home.
Where time and money are spent, there you will find your gods. Ancient gods corresponded to things that are very much still worshiped today, like material acquisition, sex, power, and fame. So an homage to “an unknown God” in today’s passage (Acts 17:22-34) got me thinking: what would it look like today to worship an unknown god?
I’m not great with budgeting. When I start looking at my budget, I frequently ask myself, “Where did all that money go? I have no idea!” And you know what? I do the same thing with my time. (“Did I just spend three hours on Wikipedia?”) Money and time are two of the most useful metrics we have for truly gauging what’s truly important to us, and I don’t even know where I’m spending all of mine.
It begs the question: which is the greater sin? That I ignore my God for the sake of something really enticing, or that I ignore my God for the sake of, essentially, nothing?
It’s been said that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. And, in my experience, that’s true: not caring at all is a much more dangerous reaction than feeling angry. It raises no alarms. It’s very difficult to combat. In fact, it can be very difficult to recognize at all.
There’s a reason John Wesley said that one of the three most important things in living out our faith is to stay in love with God: it’s so easy to forget, and it’s so hard to catch when we do forget. But if we’re not spending a good portion of our time and money working for good, it can be a sign that our hearts are also out of alignment. If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves worshipping an unknown god, rather than the very personal God who desires for us to reach out to Him.