SUNDAY, May 29 6 Easter

Acts 17:22-31. I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown god.”

I once visited the place in Athens where Paul was said  to have delivered this speech. There’s not much there at this late date except a rough set of steps, a sign  marking the spot, and a flat expanse of rock from which you look up toward the massive ruins of the Acropolis a few hundred yards away. There’s no sign of an altar and only the least hint of what Paul might have seen  or felt or heard.

By Paul’s day, Athens was just another occupied  provincial town in the greater Roman empire. But even the most pragmatic Roman would admit that its  Acropolis, this craggy outcrop in the midst of the ­ancient city, was a place where reason mattered and the human quest for meaning was honored. Knowing this, I admire Paul’s shrewd evangelical instincts. Rather then denounce the pagan ways of his listeners like some Bible-thumper, he treated them with  respect, and (however unsuccessful he was in the short run), set his listeners on the path to see more clearly  the “­unknown God” as the God of all and to repent ­because the world will be judged by a man God  appointed and raised from the dead.

PRAY for the Diocese of Northern Michigan  (Province V, USA)

Ps 66:7-18; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

View the daily Lectionary Readings at Satucket.com.
Or view the Bible passages at Biblegateway.com or Oremus Bible browser.

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