Sermon Text: Acts 17:22-31
Date: May 10, 2026
Event: The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Acts 17:22-31 (EHV)
Then Paul stood up in front of the council of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23For as I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made with hands. 25Neither is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives all people life and breath and everything they have. 26From one man, he made every nation of mankind to live over the entire face of the earth. He determined the appointed times and the boundaries where they would live. 27He did this so they would seek God and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘Indeed, we are also his offspring.’
29“Therefore, since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and planning. 30Although God overlooked the times of ignorance, he is now commanding all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he appointed. He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
The “Unknown” God Makes Himself Known
You know that feeling when you walk into a room because you were going to do something, get something, put something away—it doesn’t really matter why, but you walked into there with a purpose but then as you enter you stand there unclear why you’re there. Maybe I’m revealing too much about myself to say that this happens multiple times a week to me, but it’s a wild feeling knowing there’s something you don’t know, being clear that there’s something you can’t remember. You didn’t walk into that room for no reason.
But that feeling is not so different than the natural knowledge of God. The natural knowledge of God is a powerful force, and truly we can learn a lot about God from it. We can look at the marvels of nature in the grand, sweeping beauty of mountains, canyons, and prairies and see God’s handiwork. We can look at the night sky (especially away from the light pollution that sadly is so prevalent around us) and see the wonders of God in the sky, or just take a look at some of the photos and videos we were so fortunate to receive from the recent Aeries II mission around the moon! Or look smaller, much, much smaller, and see the complexity of body systems in living things or even the immense complexity of cells and DNA. From the macro to the micro, the world around us declares the wonders of God.
But that’s just examining things outside of us. If we look internally, we also get a lesson about who God is. Our consciences, though flawed by sin, are still a window into the obejctive morality that God expects. We don’t have to be told that it’s wrong to hurt or kill someone, or steal from someone. These are things that all people know, even if at times some choose to ignore it.
But then you combine the two—a conscience-informed idea of what is right and wrong and the guilt that comes along with not always doing the right thing and the power, might, and even justice of God that we see in the world around us—we find ourselves in a problematic place. We have seen the power and majesty of God, but naturally, we know that we have disobeyed the powerful, majestic God. And the one who carved out the mountain peaks and the sea beds, who placed the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, is probably not someone whose bad side you want to be on.
So, the natural knowledge of God tells us that we’ve made the almighty creator of the universe mad. This is not a position we want to be in, and so we scramble to find a way out of it. The wide, sweeping variety of different religions and lines of spiritual thought that have existed and continue to exist in our world are all people’s reaction to this natural knowledge of God and our status before him. Even thought systems that are actively against what we might call “religious” or “spiritual” ways of thinking and approaching life stem from this natural knowledge, they are just attempts to discredit it and ignore it rather than embracing the reality of it.
And all of that sets the scene for our First Reading from Acts 17. Paul has just been run out of the cities of Berea and Thessalonica by enemies of the gospel, and so he finds himself killing some time in Athens until the rest of his companions can make the trek from Berea to where he is. And as he walks around the city, we learn that he was very distressed to see that the city was full of idols (Acts 17:16). You might know some things about Athens even apart from the Bible. It was the center of philosophical thought in the ancient world (especially in Greece). Luke tells us that all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there enjoyed doing nothing more than telling or listening to something new (Acts 17:21). So, when Paul arrives and begins to talk to them about Jesus, they are very interested.
It is noteworthy that, for the Athenians, philosophy and religion were not separate but closely related. They loved philosophy and new thought systems, yes, but as we noted, they had a huge number of places of worship for the gods and goddesses of what we have come to call Greek mythology. Whether or not everyone truly believed in the existence of beings named Zeus, Hermes, Aphrodite, or Artemis is not really the point. The point is that there was a culture of religion and philosophy that tried to seek the best path in life.
And that quest for that ideal path led them to a fascinating destination. Paul noted, “I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’” You can probably imagine what would have led them to build this altar. In a massive pantheon of many different gods, there would have been a fear that they might have missed someone. And very likely the natural knowledge of God left an itch that their religious and philosophic ideas left unscratched. They’re covering their bases, so that they didn’t leave god ignored and angry.
Except, an altar to this generic unknown god isn’t going to cut it. Paul knows that and so he takes the opportunity afforded to him with this audience of curious people to reveal what they were worshiping as “unknown.”
You might have noticed that, for all the accurate and important things we can learn from the natural knowledge of God found in creation and in our hearts and consciences, one very important piece of information is missing. We know that God is powerful, we know that we’ve offended him, but we don’t know how to do anything about that. The natural knowledge of God leaves us with nothing but fear and hopelessness. Which is why we need God to reveal things we didn’t know on our own to us; we need him to make the unknown known.
And that has been the pattern since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve couldn’t have imagined that God would do something to fix the sin and death they had just brought into the world, so God had to reveal it in the prophecy of a serpent-crushing champion (Genesis 3:15). Abraham could never have guessed that, despite being childless for so much of his life, from his descendants would come that singular blessing that would be for all nations, all people (Genesis 12:3). We could never have imagined that this promised champion, this blessing for all people, would die and rise, so God revealed that through King David (Psalm 16:9-11). And the ultimate thing we could never have guessed was that the death and resurrection of this promised one would be for our sins, so God made that crystal clear through the prophet Isaiah: Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings. We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the LORD has charged all our guilt to him. (Isaiah 53:4-6).
These are the things people need to hear that can only be found in God’s revealed knowledge, in his Word. The mountains and skies proclaim the greatness of God, but none of them preach Jesus, crucified and risen for us.
And this was the message that Paul preached in Athens. For some, it was intriguing; for others, it was laughable. In fact, Paul largely lost the crowd after the closing verse of our First Reading, “He provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” The resurrection of the dead was a bridge too far even for these new-idea-lovers.
You and I have and will continue to meet that same mix of responses when we reveal God’s truths that are hidden by nature. And we will continue to have parts of us that respond negatively to this message as well. Our sinful natures don’t want to have anything to do with God’s truth, and that part of us would very much like to run away from the reality of our sin or make up some fiction about how we get right with God.
But as we heard over the last couple of weeks, there’s only one solution to sin, and it’s the unknown Savior that God has made known to us. The Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised, has come to us to create that faith, that trust, in Jesus in our hearts. So, though we didn’t know him by nature, we know him by faith. Though we haven’t seen him with our eyes, we have seen clearly his work for us. Though we haven’t put our fingers into the nail marks in his hands, we know that they were put there to save us.
Our Savior is naturally unknown, but God has made him known to us through his Word. May he keep our faith in him strong and bless our continued efforts to follow Paul’s pattern to continue to make the unknown known to the world so that all can rejoice in the assurance of their sins forgiven and eternal life.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria
Sermon prepared for Gloria Dei Lutheran Church (WELS), Belmont, CA (www.gdluth.org) by Pastor Timothy Shrimpton. All rights reserved. Contact pastor@gdluth.org for usage information.
